^ss©Q©se^e©s5 



^^Q^&^i 



I LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 



i 



/- 



i UNITED STATES^ OF AMEmCA. 




/ .:^-■^^ 



•■<^.:■'^.' 
■^A' 







mr^- 



m} 



a 



BOOKS RECENTLY PUBLISHED. 

A GRAMMAR OF POLITICAL ECONOMY. By 
Maj.-Gen. W. F. Marriott, C.S.I. Crown 8vo. Cloth, price 6s. 

STUDIES IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. By 

Anthont Musgrave. Crown 8vo. Cloth, price 6s. 

SOCIALISM: Its Nature, its Dangers, and its Remedies considered. 
By Rev. M. Kaufmann, B.A. Crown 8vo. Cloth, price Ts. 6d. 

LOMBARD STREET. A Description of the Money Market. By 
Walter Bagehot. Sixth Edition. Crown Bvo. Cloth, price Is. 6d. 

INDUSTRIAL CONCILIATION. By Henbt Cbompton. 
Fcp. Bvo. Cloth, price 2s. 6d. 

THE ENGLISH CONSTITUTION. By 

Walter Bagehot. A New Edition, revised and corrected. 
Crown 8vo. Cloth, price 7s. 6cJ. 

PHYSICS AND POLITICS; or. Thoughts on the AppUcation 
of the Principles of "Natural Selection" and "Inheritance" to 
Political Society. By Walter Bagehot. Third Edition. Crown 
8vo. Cloth, price 4s. 

Volume II. of the International Scientific Series. 

THE SCIENCE OP LAW. By Professor Sheldon Amos. 
Second Edition. Crown 8vo. Cloth, price 5s. 

Volume X. of the International Scientific Series. 

THE FALL IN THE PRICE OF SILVER: 

Its Causes, its Consequences, and their Possible Avoidance, with 
Special Reference to India. By Ernest Setd, F.SjS. Demy 8vo. 
Sewed, price 2s. 6i. 

HENRY S. KING & CO., LONDON. 



OUTLINES OF AN INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 



OUTLINES OF AN 
INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 



By DAVID SYME. 



//■:>■ 



'•'k 









PHILADELPHIA : 
Henry Carey Baird & Co., 
Industrial Publishers, Booksellers, and Importers. 

1876. 



mi(,i 



{Tfui rights of translation and of reprod-uction are reserved.) 

> 



PREFACE. 



The following pages were written in hours snatched from 
a laborious profession, often at wide intervals apart, and 
generally after a long and exhausting day's work. They 
were afterwards put together, and partly rewritten, on 
shipboard, on my way here from the Antipodes. These 
conditions are not very favourable to that concentration 
and continuity of thought which a subject of the kind 
here treated of requires, and this must be my excuse for 
any defects that may be found in them, which, I have no 
doubt, are numerous enough. 

There is only one thing I take credit for, and that is, 
that I have endeavoured to put my ideas in as concise a 
form as possible. There is not a paragraph, sentence, 
or word, not absolutely necessary to explain my mean- 



VI PREFACE. 

ing that I have retained, so that, if I do not succeed in 
convincing my readers, I shall, at all events, have the 
satisfaction of knowing that I have not wearied their 
patience. 

I have to thank my friend Prof. T. E. Cliffe Leslie 
for his kindness in reading over the proof sheets, and for 
some valuable suggestions which he has made to me, 
although this must not be understood as implying that 
our views are perfectly in accord on all points. 

D, S. 

London, 

November 1st, 1876. 



CONTENTS. 



PAET I.— MATTEE AND METHOD. 
CHAPTER I. 

THE SUBJECT-MATTEE. 

PAGB 

Classification of Subject ... ... ... ... ... 1 

Mode of Procedure ... ..: ... ... ... 2 

The Subject-matter ... ... ... ... ... 2 

The Terux Political Economy ... ... ... ... 3 

Yarious Definitions of tlie Science ... ... ... ... 5 

On the Term Wealth ... ... ... ... ... 5 

Is Wealth the Subject-matter ? ... ... ... ... 7 

Is Political Economy a Mental or a Physical Science ? ... 7 

Mr. Mill's View ... ... .., ... ... ... 8 

Professor Cairnes's View- ... ... ... ... 9 

Political Economy is a Mental Science ... ... ... 10 

What is meant by Industrial Science ... ... ... 12 

CHAPTER n. 

THE METHOD OF INVESTIGATION^. 

Adam Smith's View .... ... ... ... ... 13 

Mr. Senior's View ... ... ... ... ... 13 

Professor Cairnes's View ... ... ... ... ... 14 

Mr. MiU's View ... ... ... ... ... 15 

Mr. Mill's View examined ... ... ... ... ... 17 

The Hypothesis of the Maximum of Wealth ... ... 22 



Vm CONTENTS. 

PAGB 

The Hypothesis of a Single Motive ... ... ... ... 23 

Mr. Mill admits the Inadequacy of his Hypothesis ... ... 24 

Admits the Necessity for Verification... ... ... ... 26 

His " Proper- Allowance " Theory inapplicable ... ... 27 

Conclusion from the Whole ... ... ... ... ... 27 

The Method by Induction ... ... ... ... 28 

A Method more applicable to Moral than to Physical Science ... 29 



CHAPTER III. 

ALLEGED SUFFICIENCY OF SELF-INTEREST. 

The Dogma stated ... ... ... ... ... 31 

Not in Accordance with the Laws of Man's Nattire ... 33 

Nor with Facts ... ... ... ... ... ... 34 

CHAPTER IV. 

ON DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 

Difference between this and Competition ... ... ... 35 

Meaning of the Term Demand ... ... ... ... 36 

Corollaries from the Law ... ... ... ... ... 38 

It ignores Moral Distinctions ... ... ... ... 38 

Contest between Wants and Desires ... ... ... 39 

Contest between Desires ... ... ... ... 40 

Illustrated by the Case of a Wages Dispute ... ... ... 41 

Effect of on the Eate of Wages ... ... ... ... 42 

Injurious Effects of Low Wages ... ... ... ... 44 

The Argument from Enlightened Self-interest ... ... 45 

The Ratio of Wages to the Price of Provisions ... ... 47 

Distinction between Necessaries and Luxuries ... ... 49 

The Case of Mr. Milne ... ... ... ... ... 50 

Different Effects of, on Capital and Labour' ... ... 62 

CHAPTER Y. 

ON COMPETITION. 

What the Sufficiency of Self-interest Dogma implies ... ... 55 

The Object of Competition ... ... ... .... 56 

Custom, Competition, and Co-operation ... ... ... 57 



CONTENTS. 



IX 



The Tendency of Competition 

Conditions Necessary to Annihilate Competition 

The First Condition — Capital : — 

The Case where two Capitals are Unequal . . . 

The Case where two Capitals are Equal 

Wholesale and Eetail Houses 

Small Manufacturers and Wholesale Firms 

Sale by Auction ... 

Land Sales in the Australian Colonies . . . 

National Competition 

England and her Dependencies 

The Indian Cotton Duties 
The Second Condition — Absence of Moral Principle :- 

Modem Trade Practices ... 

Openly tolerated and defended 

The Manchester Chamber of Commerce 

The Bombay Chamber of Commerce 
How such Evils right themselves 
One Cause of High Customs Tariffs ... 
The Case of Victoria 
The Quality of British Exports 
Industrial Progress does not keep Pace with Social 
Political Economy and Morals 

Economists subordinate Social to Individual Interests 
The Moral Element Essential 





PAGE 

58 




59 


.. 


60 




61 




61 




63 




64 




65 




66 




67 




70 
70 
75 
79 




83 




84 




84 




85 




. 86 


87 


88 


91 


... 92 


93 




94 



PAET IL— PEINCIPLES. 

CHAPTER YI. 

INDUSTRIAL FORCES. 



Adam Smith's Premisses in the Wealth of Nations 

In his Moral Sentwients 

Difference between him and Modern Deductionists 

The Method of Social Science 

The Method of Ethics 

The Isolation of Motives 



97 

97 

99 

100 

100 

101 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

Difference between a Force and a Law ... ... ... 102 

Different Kinds of Forces ... ... ... ... 103 

Classification of Industrial Forces ... ... ... ... 105 

The Eelative Importance of Industrial Forces ... ... 10/ 

The Egoistic : — 

The First Division, or Wants ... ... ... 107 

The Second Division, or Desires ... ... ... 109 

The Hemeistic or Social Forces ... ... ... ... Ill 

The AUostio or Moral Forces ... .,. ... ... 113 



CHAPTER yil. 

ON VALUE. 

Value in Use and in Exchange ... ... ... ... 115 

Various Definitions of Value ... ... ... ... 115 

Exchangeability not an Essential Element in Value ... ... 116 

Utility and Difl&culty of Attainment in Relation to Value . . . 118 

The Essential Character of Value ... ... ... ... 120 

Difficulty of Attainment Subordinate to Utility ... ... 120 

Definition of Value .. . ... ... ... ... ... 121 



CHAPTER YIII. 

ON PRICE. 

Difference between Value and Price ... ... . ... ... 123 

How Price is determined ... ... ... ... 124 

Demand and Supply in relation to Price ... ... ... 125 

Mr. Mill's Definition of the Terms Demand and Su;pply . . . 125 

The Terms Unsuitable ... ... ... ... ... 127 

Correlative Demand ... ... ... ... ... 128 

Quantitativeness not an Essential Element in Price ... ... 129 

The Case of a Deficiency ... ... ... ... 129 

The Case of a Surplus ... ... ... ... ... 130 

The Effect of a Deficiency or Surplus ... ... ... • 131 

Fluctuations in the Money Market ... ... ... ... 132 

Quantity in relation to Price ... ... ... ... 133 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER IX. 
ON PEICE (continued). 

PAGE 

Instruments of Production ... ... ... ... 136 

Labour : — 

The Wages -fund Theory ... ... ... ... 137 

Is based on two Erroneous Assumptions ... ... 138 

That the Capital of a Country is a Fixed Quantity... 138 

That Wages are paid out of Capital... ... ... 139 

The Eolation of Profits to Wages ... ... ... 140 

The Case of the Coal and Iron Trades ... ...* ... 141 

Variations in the Eate of Wages in Different Countries 145 

Special Causes of Variation ... ... ... ... 146 

Variations in the same Country ... ... ... 149 

Eegulated by Profits ... ... ... ... ... 149 

Capital : — 

The Eolation of Profits to Interest .. . ... ... 151 

The Price of Money in New and in Old Countries . . . 152 

Land : — 

The Eelation of Profits to Eenfc ... ... ... 153 



PAET III.— KELATIONS. 
CHAPTER X. 

EELATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 

Points of Agreement between Industrial and Social Science ... 157 

The Deductionists' Hypothesis ... ... ... ... 158 

The Family as the Unit ... ... ... ... ... 159 

The Standpoint of the Sociologist ... ... ... 160 

Structure of the Social and Industrial Organism ... ... 162 

Subordination of Industrial to Social Science ... ... 163 

The Sphere of Social and Industrial Forces ... ... ... 165 



Xli CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XI. 
EELATION TO ETHICS. 

FAGB 

Insufficiency of the Henaeistic Forces ... ... ... 166 

The Lancashire Cotton Spinners ... ... ... ... 166 

Manufactnrers and Middlemen ... ... ... ... 168 

Views of Plato and Aristotle ... ... ... ... 171 

Industry based on the Ethical Sentiment ... ... ... 172 

As in the Case of Property ... ... ... 172 

In Contract ... ... ... ... ... ... 174 

Why the Ethical Sentiment is Essential ... ... ... 174 

Helation of Industrial to Social and Ethical Science ... ... 175 

CHAPTER XII. 

RELATION TO ART. 

DiflPerence between Science and Art ... ... ... ... 176 

The Art of Legislation... ... ... ... ... 176 

Industrial Art ignored ... ... ... ... ... 177 

Mental Phenomena incapable of Prevision ... ... 178 

Notwithstanding this a Moral Science exists ... ... ... 179 

The Deductionists insist on Prevision ... ... ... 180 

Laissez faire ... ... ... ... ... ... 181 

State Interference Necessary ... ... ... ... 182 

Legislative Art follows Nature's Method ... ... ... 183 

Ends and Means of Art ... ... ... ,. . . ... 184 

Social Ends ... ... ... ... ... ... 184 

Social Means ... ... ... ... ... ... 185 

One Cause of Industrial Supremacy ... ... ... ... 186 

Buying in the Cheapest Market ... ... ... ... 187 

Society the Best Judge of its own Interests ... ... ... 188 



Index ... ... .. ... ... ... 189 



PART I. 

MATTER AND METHOD. 



OUTLINES 



OF AN" 



INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTEE I. 

THE SUBJECT-MATTER. 

Any large or comprehensive subject usually requires, 
in order that it may be conveniently or ex- 

Classifica- 

haustively treated in all its details, to be tion of 

•J 1' ' • ■ 1 subject. 

broken up into separate parts or divisions, and 
these again into other parts or subdivisions. Accord- 
ingly, in dealing with the Science of Man, which is 
certainly one of the largest and most comprehensive of 
subjects, it has been the practice heretofore to consider 
it under two main divisions ; under the one is included 
all that refers to the physical, and under the other, all 
that refers to the mental side of man's nature. And, 
carrying out the mode of treatment here indicated, 
we have, on the ph^^sical side, the organic sciences — 
Physiology, Anatomy, and Organic Chemistry ; and, on 

B 



2 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

the mental side, we have Psychology, Ethics, Politics, 
and what is termed Political Economy. 

Another question of primary importance in dealing 
Mode of "^^^^ such a subject as that before us, is the 
procedure. j^q^Jq ^f proccdm^e, or the process of investi- 
gation to be pursued. The first step is to arrange 
those facts or phenomena which are of a homogeneous 
character into distinct groups or classes. Our subject 
being Man, we have, on the physical side, for instance, 
the phenomena of human existence, the structure of 
the human body, and the various chemical processes 
affecting the living organism, which are treated under 
Physiology, Anatomy, and Organic Chemistry respec- 
tively. On the mental side, on the other hand, we have 
the phenomena of cogitation, of human judgments, or 
of what are included under the terms conscience and 
moral sense, of social organization, and of indus- 
trial activity, which are treated of under Psychology, 
Ethics, Politics, and Political Economy respectively. It 
is with the phenomena of the latter class alone that 
I propose to deal in the present instance. 

When we look around us, we find mankind actively 

and incessantly engaged in operations of various 

subject. kinds, and all of them entailing labour of a more 

matter. 

or less pamful character. They plough, they 
sow, they reap. They clear forests, reclaim swamps, 
and change the face of nature. They make roads, con- 
struct bridges and railways. They build houses, 
workshops, and palaces. They cover the land with 



THE SUBJECT-MATTER. 3 

cities, and the sea with ships. They work up the raw 
material of the field, the forest, and the mine into 
finished manufactures, and carry these to the most 
distant places of the earth. And along with all this, 
there is a continual process of exchange of products 
carried on between man and man, and between one 
country and another. Every one is producing some- 
thing that some one requires, and everything pro- 
duced is exchanged for something else ; commodities 
for services, services for commodities, and commodities 
for commodities. The whole human race appears to 
be perpetually occupied in making and unmaking, 
in buying and selling, in producing and con- 
suming. And this process is going on from day to 
day, from year to year, from one generation to another, 
without intermission. Why this restlessness, this in- 
cessant activity, this enormous expenditure of human 
energy? These are the phenomena which constitute 
the subject-matter of that branch of the science of man 
which I venture to call Industrial Science. "We have 
a Science of Mental Action, a Science of Moral Action, 
and a Science of Social Action ; why should there not 
be also a Science of Industrial miction ? On the other 
hand^ it is difficult to see why there should be a science 
of Wealth. Why of Wealth any more than of any other 
object of human desire, as, for instance, of Health, of 
Power, of Honour, or of Fame ? 

Here it .is necessary to say something about the title 
of this work. I have adopted the term Industrial Science 



4 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

instead of Political Economy, because the former properly 
indicates the subject under investigation, which 

The term 

Political the latter does not. Words are misleading 
conomy. ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ ^^^ convoj the meaning intended. 

The word Economy means the regulation of the house, 
or the judicious management of a man's property, and 
is so used both by Aristotle and Xenophon. In its 
modern English acceptation, it means frugality or par- 
simony. Its technical or scientific use is, therefore, 
neither in accordance with the Greek nor English 
meaning of the word. Nor does the adjunct Political 
help us in the least out of the difficulty. In the first 
place, the qualifying word has already been appropriated 
by a cognate science (Politics) in strict accordance 
with its meaning. In the second place, when it is used 
as an adjunct to the word Economy, it conveys a false 
meaning, and one never intended by those who use it; 
for Political Economy would then mean the regulation of 
the house applied to the state. The term would express 
that management which the state exercises, or ought to 
exercise, for the benefit of all its citizens. I need hardly 
say that economists, and least of all those of the 
modern English school, do not inculcate the doctrine 
that the state should direct the industry of the country, 
which is the obvious meaning of the words. As, there- 
fore, the term now used is misleading, even when 
applied to the subjects usually discussed under that 
head, and as it is even less appropriate to the scope - 
of the following inquiry, I have preferred the term 



THE SUBJECT-MATTEE. 5 

Industrial Science, as being more suitable every way 
considered. 

Political Economy has been variously defined as "the 
science which states the laws regulating the 

Definitions 

production and distribution of wealth;"^ '*the of the 
science of the laws which regulate the produc- 
tion, accumulation, distribution, and consumption of 
those articles or products that are necessary, useful, or 
agreeable to man ; " ^ the science which investigates 
"the nature of wealth, and the laws of its production 
and distribution." ^ The subject-matter of Political 
Economy, according to these authorities, is "Wealth ; 
and Political Economy may be said to be, and is, in fact, 
usually called, the Science of Wealth. Thus, Adam 
Smith discussed the principles of Economic Science 
under the title of The Wealth of Nations,- and Prof. 
Hearn, more recently, treated the same subject under 
the title of Plutology. 

It will be observed that in these definitions economic 
writers use the term Wealth in a purely tech- The term 
nical sense. They understand by it all objects 
whatsoever which possess value .^ With Malthus, Wealth 
includes " all material objects which are voluntarily 
appropriated by individuals." ^ McCuUoch, as we have 
seen, does not employ the term Wealth, but uses the 

^ Senior, Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, p. 36. 

* McCulloch, Principles of Political Economy, p. 1. 
' Mill, Principles of Political Economy, p. 1. 

* Senior, Political Economy, p. 6. Fourth edition. 

* Principles of Political Economy, p. 33. Second edition. 



6 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

periphrasis, " articles or products that are necessary, 
useful, or agreeable to man," to express the same idea; 
and Mill includes under it " all useful or agreeable 
things which possess exchangeable value ; or, in other 
words, all useful or agreeable things, except those which 
can be obtained, in the quantity desired, without labour 
or sacrifice." ^ 

Note here the difficulty which besets the student at 
the very outset of the inquiry, owing to the want, of 
proper terms to express the subject-matter under investi- 
gation. First, we have the term Political Economy, 
which is either meaningless or misleading. Next we 
have to fall back on the term Wealth to indicate the 
subject-matter ; but this, like the teim. Political Economy, 
is used in a purely technical sense, which is neither in 
accordance with its etymological nor its popular meaning. 
Surely no science was ever so unfortunately placed for 
want of a proper vocabulary. The terms Political 
Economy and Wealth, in the sense used by economic 
writers, violate nearly the whole of the seven funda- 
mental aphorisms laid down by Whewell for the use of 
technical terms. ^ 

' Principles of Political Economy. Preliminary Kemarks, p. 11. 

2 Take for instance the last four : — 

" 4. When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their 
meaning and relations in common nse should be retained as far as can 
conveniently be done. 

"5. When common words are appropriated as technical terms, their 
meaning may be modified, and must be rigorously fixed. 

" 6. When common words are appropriated as technical terms, this 
must be done so that they are not ambiguous in their application. 



THE SUBJECT-MATTEE. 7 

In immediate connection with this difficulty there rises 
the question, Is Wealth, in the economic sense of ig wealth 
the term, really the subject-matter of Political g^^-g^^ 
Economy? If so, and if Wealth consists, as we matter? 
have seen it defined, of all objects necessary, useful, or 
agreeable to man, then Political Economy must be a very 
comprehensive science indeed, for there is scarcely an 
object that can be mentioned the possession of which is 
not more or less necessary, useful, or agreeable to some 
one, somewhere, at one time or other ; and if, as J. S. 
Mill and his followers tell us, it is the object of Political 
Economy to investigate the nature of the laws which 
regulate the production and distribution (and, according 
to some, even the accumulation and consumption) of all 
things which constitute Wealth, there would absolutely 
be no limit to the inquiry, which would embrace an 
investigation into the nature of, and the laws which 
govern, everything under the sun. It is evident that 
economic writers have never sufficiently considered the 
import of this definition, or they could not have put it 
forth to the world in the manner they have done. 

There is another consideration involved in this ques- 
tion. If Wealth consists of material objects t td i-x- i 

•^ IsPoLtical 

(which no economic writer has yet called in Economy a 

mental or 

question, although Mill would not limit his a physical 

. . . . science ? 

definition to these), then Political Economy 

" 7. It is better to form new words as technical terms than to employ 
old ones in which the three last aphorisms cannot be complied with," 
Dissert, on the Progress of Ethical Philosophy. Works, vol. i. p. 5. 



8 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

would be a physical and not a mental science. On the 
other hand, if Political Economy be a mental science, 
it has just as much concern with the objects which 
constitute wealth as Psychology, for instance, or Ethics 
has with the external world. It is a matter of the 
very greatest importance to have clear ideas on this 
point, as for want of them most writers on this subject 
have helplessly involved themselves in a maze of 
error. 

The confusion of ideas we find existing, even amongst 
the most eminent authorities, as to the true character 
of Economic Science, is most remarkable. The only 
writers who have attempted to define the position of 
-^iyvq Political Economy are J, S. Mill and Prof. 
^^®^' Cairnes, and neither of them has, it appears 

to me, succeeded in dealing with the subject in a satis- 
factory manner. *' The laws of the production of the 
objects which constitute wealth," says Mill, " are the 
subject-matter both of Political Economy and of almost 
all the physical sciences. Such, however, of these 
laws as are purely laws of matter, belong to phy- 
sical science, and to that exclusively. Such of these 
as are the laws of human mind, and no others, 
belong to Political Economy, which finally sums up 
the result of both combined."^ It would be difficult 
to put together statements more irreconcilable with 
each other than those contained in the three sen- 
tences I have just quoted. " The laws of the objects 

^ Some Unsettled Questions of Political Economy, p. 132. 



THE SUBJECT-MATTEE. 9 

which constitute wealth," we are told in the first sen- 
tence, " are the subject-matter of Political Economy " in 
common with all the physical sciences ; in the second we 
are informed that only " such of these laws as are the 
laws of human mind" belong to this science; and in 
the third, notwithstanding we have just been informed 
that Political Economy has to deal with only a portion 
of these laws, it is stated, that it ''finally sums up the 
result of both combined." One thing only is certain, 
that all three statements cannot be correct; for if 
Political Economy has to deal with the laws of matter, 
it cannot be a mental science ; if, on the other hand, 
it has to deal with the laws of mind, it cannot be a 
physical science ; and lastly, if it has to deal with 
both, it cannot be exclusively either the one or the 
other. 

Prof. Cairnes's explanation is, if possible, still 
more unintelligible. Political Economy is, caimes's 
according to this writer, ''the science which, ^®^- 
accepting as ultimate facts the principles of human 
nature and the physical laws of the external world, 
investigates the laws of the production and distri- 
bution of wealth, which results from their combined 
operation."^ This definition is comprehensive enough 
if it has not the merit of clearness, and his remarks 
farther on do not help to simplify matters in the least. 
" The laws of the phenomena of wealth which belong to 
Political Economy to explain," he says, " depend equally 

^ Character and Logical Method of Political Economy, p. lO. 



10 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

on physical and mental laws," and " the subject-matter 
of Political Economy, namely, wealth, is neither purely 
physical nor purely mental, but possesses a complex 
character equally derived from both departments of 
nature, and the laws of which are neither mental nor 
physical laws, though they are dependent, and, as I main- 
tain, dependent equally, on the laws of matter and on 
those of mind." And again: — "Political Economy be- 
longs neither to the department of physical nor that of 
mental inquiry, but occupies an intermediate position."^ 
I confess I am unable to understand what these laws 
are which are neither physical nor mental ; and I am 
equally at a loss to conceive the nature of the science 
which is here said to occupy an intermediate position 
between matter and mind. 

At this stage of the inquiry, I content myself with 
Political stating that I regard Political Economy as a 
mentai^"^^ purely mental science. When we consider that 
science. industrial phenomena are the product of human, 
actions, and that human actions again are the product 
of mental impulses, no other conclusion appears to me to 
be possible. It is true that in treating of industrial 
phenomena we come into contact with material objects, 
but the fact does not necessarily make Political Economy 
a physical science. Even in the science of pure mind, 
we are constantly brought face to face with matter, as, 
for instance, when we trace ideas and sensations to cer- 
tain external objects which produce them; but mental 

^ Cha'>-acter and Logical Method of Political Economy, p. 24. 



THE SUBJECT-MATTEK. 11 

science does not concern itself with the external objects, 
being occupied exclusively with the sensations and ideas 
of which they are merely the inciting cause. So it is with 
the material objects which constitute Wealth. It is not 
with these that Political Economy has to deal, but with 
the impressions which they produce, the mental associa- 
tions connected with them, and the Desires which their 
presence or absence incite. Thus the presence of food 
produces a sensation of pleasure, and the absence of food 
a sensation of pain. The association connected in the 
mind with these sensations, and an object supposed to 
be capable of producing them, incite a desire to obtain 
possession of that object. These are all mental phe- 
nomena ; and I maintain that it is with these, and with 
these exclusively, that Economic Science has to deal. 
Whether wheat, for instance, is a more nourishing article 
of human food than oats or barley, is no concern of 
the farmer who grows it, of the miller who grinds it, or 
of the baker who bakes it ; the fact that wheat is an 
object of human desire is alone sufficient to ensure the 
expenditure of human labour in its production ; and 
the various processes involved in its production, its con- 
version into flour and again into bread, form no part of 
the subject-matter of Economic Science, but belong pro- 
perly to practical agriculture and domestic economy. 
The sole importance which this or any other object of 
Wealth has to the student of Economic Science, lies in 
the fact that it is, has been, or may become, an object of 
human desire. 



12 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

The subject-matter of the science we have to investi- 
gate, therefore, is not Wealth, but Industrial 

Industrial 

Science Activity. Industrial Science may be defined 
as the science which investigates the laws 
which regulate human industry. Thus understood, 
Industrial Science is entitled to take its place among 
the mental sciences — a position to which Political 
Economy has hitherto been unable to lay any just 
claim. 



( 13 ) 



CHAPTER II. 

METHOD OF INVESTIGATION". 

It is somewhat remarkable that so little attention has 
been given to the method of investigation in Economic 
Science. The modern English school, following Adam 
Smith and MiU, have, without exception, adopted the 
deductive method. Adam Smith, indeed, no- 

A r| Q Tyi 

where distinctly states what his method is, but Smith's 
from numerous remarks scattered throughout 
the Wealth of Nations, and from the whole tenor of that 
work, it seems tolerably certain that his treatment of the 
subject was mainly deductive. " The tendency of any 
man to follow his own interest," " the natural effort of 
every man to better his own condition," were funda- 
mental propositions with him, and from these he deduced 
all the principles laid down in his work.^ 

Senior distinctly adopts the deductive method, and 
maintains that it is the only one applicable to senior's 
the science.^ " The general facts on which ^^®^- 

^ See Wealth of Nations, book ii. cli. iii. See also book iv. ch. v. 
2 Political Economy, p. 1. 



14 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

the science of Political Economy rests," he says, ''are 
comprised in a few general propositions," of which the 
first and fundamental one is stated to be " that every 
man desires to obtain additional wealth with as little 
sacrifice as possible." By the desire for wealth, he ex- 
plains, that he does not mean that everybody, or indeed 
anybody, wishes for an indefinite quantity of anjrthing, 
or that wealth is, or ought to be, the principal object of 
human desire, but simply that no person ever feels his 
whole wants to be absolutely supplied, and that every one 
has some unsatisfied desires which he believes additional 
wealth would gratify. In his opinion, the proposition 
that " every man desires to obtain additional wealth," is 
self-evident ; and he apologizes for explaining it at some 
length on the ground of its supreme importance, it being 
a proposition that is " assumed in every process of 
economic reasoning," is the "corner-stone of the doctrine 
of wages and profits, and, generally speaking, of ex- 
change." In short, he maintains that the proposition is 
in Political Economy, '' what gravitation is in physics, or 
the dictum de omni et nullo in logic : the ultimate fact 
beyond which reasoning cannot go, and of which almost 
every other proposition is merely an illustration." ^ 

I hardly know whether to include Prof. Cairnes 
Cairnes's among the deductionists or not, his views on 
^^^' the subject being so inconsistent. In his 
essay on The Logical Method of Political Economy, he 
evidently regards Political Economy as a purely deduc- 

1 Political Economy, p. 28. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATIO:S'. 15 

tive science, although, strangely enough, he classifies 
it with Astronomy, Mechanics, Optics, Chemistry, and 
Electricity,-^ which are obviously inductive sciences ; and 
in the same essay he describes it as "both a positive 
and a hypothetical science." In a more recent work,^ 
however, he throughout discusses the subject from the 
standpoint of the deductionist. 

It is to J. S. Mill that we are indebted for the first clear 
and distinct exposition of the deductive method j^^y^ 
as applicable to Economic Science. *' Political ^®^' 
Economy," he tells us, " does not treat of the whole of 
man's nature as modified by the social state nor of the 
conduct of man in society. It is concerned with him 
solely as a being who desires to possess wealth, and who 
is capable of judging of the comparative efficacy of means 
of obtaining that end. It predicts only such of the phe- 
nomena of the social state as take place in consequence 
of the pursuit of wealth. It makes entire abstraction of 
every other human passion or motive, except those which 
may be regarded as perpetually antagonizing principles 
to the desire of wealth, namely, aversion to labour, and 
the desire of the present enjoyment of costly luxuries. 
. . . Political Economy considers mankind as occupied 
solely in acquiring and consuming wealth ; and aims at 
showing what is the course of action into which man- 
kind, living in a state of society, would be impelled, if 
that motive, except in the degree in which it is checked 

^ Page 40. 

* Essays on Political Economy, Essay viii. 



16 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

by the two perpetual counter motives above adverted to, 
were absolute ruler of all their actions." ^ The view 
here given, he goes on to explain, is not that mankind 
are in reality solely influenced by the motives referred to 
above, but that Political Economy is only concerned with 
these. It assumes that the desire to obtain wealth is 
"the main or acknowledged end" of industrial action, 
and it proceeds to treat of this as "the sole end." " There 
are," he says, " certain departments of human affairs, 
in which the acquisition of wealth is the main or ac- 
knowledged end. It is only of these that Political 
E conomy takes notice. The manner in which it necessarily 
proceeds is that of treating the main and acknowledged 
end as if it were the sole end, which, of all hypotheses 
equally simple, is the nearest to the truth." ^ Mill here 
assumes, first, that " the main and acknowledged end ". 
is the desire of wealth ; secondly, that the main and 
acknowledged end is "the sole end." The process by 
which he converts a "main and acknowledged end," into 
"the sole end" is not discovered, so we cannot explain 
how the strange conversion has been brought about. It 
is not pretended that the second proposition is identical 
with the first, or that it is an axiomatic truth, or that 
it is based on what he calls " the real order of human 
affairs." He seems, in fact, to have assumed it on ac- 
count of its simplicity, since the only reason assigned for 
its adoption is the statement that, "like all hypotheses 

^ Some Unsettled Questions, pp. 137, 138. 
2 i)3i(i_ pp, 139^ 140. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 17 

equally simple," it appeared to him to ''be nearest the 
truth." In other words, the deductive method required 
an hypothesis, and this one appeared to him the most 
suitable for his purpose. 

This method has certainly the merit of great sim- 
plicity. Once admit the hypothesis, and the 

Mill's 

prmciples deducible from it become a- mere view 
matter of dialectics. An hypothesis to be of 
any value, however, must be capable of explaining all 
the phenomena for which it is used. Does the hypo- 
thesis in question serve such a purpose ? 

Strictly speaking, it cannot be said that the desire 
of wealth, in the sense of including purpose or end, 
is "the sole end" or motive of industrial action. A 
motive seldom or ever exists under conditions that 
admit of being regarded by itself. Generally speaking, 
every motive has more than one aspect or relation. 
There are intermediate, and there are ulterior ends. 
The acquisition of wealth cannot be regarded as an 
ulterior, but only as an intermediate end. Wealth is 
not pursued for its own sake, but on account of 
the pleasures it may bring, or the pains it may avert. 
The prospect of even an enormous amount of wealth 
will never impel to exertion if it is believed its pos- 
session would not conduce to happiness. Wealth is 
pursued as a means, not as an end; and the term 
"means" implies other modes of arriving at the 
same end, as the term "end" implies the subordi- 
nation of means. 





18 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE, 

With regard to the hypothesis laid down by Mill, 
namely, that mankind invariably and exclusively act with 
a view to the possession of the maximum of wealth, with 
the minimum expenditure of labour or self-denial, I am 
surprised that it has been seriously entertained. Is it not 
within the experience of every one, that acts, of a strictly 
industrial character, are performed every hour of the 
day by persons into whose mind the idea of wealth has 
scarcely, if ever, entered ? We do many things because 
other people do them ; because we have become accus- 
tomed to do them ; because by doing them we think we 
will gratify or benefit some one ; and because we believe 
it right and proper they should be done. Even in cases 
where a decision has been arrived at after mature 
deliberation, the acquisition of wealth enters often as a 
merely subordinate consideration. A youth commences 
an industrial career by choosing a trade, business, or 
profession. Is his sole motive the acquisition of the 
maximum of wealth ? If so, how is it that so many 
deliberately adopt a career that is comparatively non- 
lucrative ? Or if it be said that it is his parents who 
choose for him, how is it that they do not invariably 
select the most lucrative ? ^ When we see it stated. 



^ " What," asks Prof. Cliffe Leslie, "do we learn respecting the real 
division of employments in Auvergne — the motives which determine 
it, the distribution of landed property and other wealth, the scale of 
wages and prices — from the assumption that every individual pursues 
his pecuniary interest to the uttermost ? Is it simply the desire of 
pecuniary gain which makes one Avergnat a porter at Lyons, another a 
priest at Clermont, and the sisters of both perhaps nuns, while an elder 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION 19 

with all the formality and scientific precision of an as- 
certained law, that the desire of wealth alone regulates 
profits, prices, and wages,^ we naturally look for some 
evidence in support of the statement. But none is 
forthcoming. The statement is entirely unsupported by 
facts. It is a matter beyond dispute that profits, prices, 
and wages vary in different countries, and even in the 
same country and in localities immediately adjacent to 
each other, facts quite irreconcilable with the hypothesis 
that the sole motive of every man is to acquire the 
maximum of wealth. Take wages, for instance. The rate 
of wages in the same trade differs materially in England, 
France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, the United 
States of America, and in Australia. In no two of these 

brother of eacli lias the whole family property ? In one only of the 
three regions described is pecuniary interest the dominant principle ; 
and even in that region there are inequalities of wages and profits, with 
other economic phenomena, utterly with variance at doctrines which, by a 
curious combination of blunders, have been called by some writers, 
' economic laws.' The faith of the school of English economists re- 
moves mountains. In France, where labour moves from place to place 
and from agriculture to other employments much more freely than in 
England, mountains certainly do not prevent the migration of labour. 
Yet even in France, the migration by no means takes place on such a 
scale, or with such facility, as nearly to equalize wages ; and in places 
from which it is greatest, the department of the C reuse and the province 
of Auvergne, the main cause is not pecuniary interest. The younger 
brother in Auvergne goes from his home to a distant city in obedience to 
traditional family sentiments; and the peasant goes from Creuse to 
Paris as a mason, not because he has calculated the difference of earnings 
in the two places, and in different employments (for he could make more 
in many cases by remaining at home), but because his father went to 
Paris before him, and his comrades do around him." — Fortnightly 
Bevieiu, Dec. 1874. 

■^ Senior, Political Economy, p. 28. 



20 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

countries is the rate of wages the same. But the rate 
differs even in the same country. In some districts of 
France wages in the same trade are nearly double what 
they are in others. Every one knows that there are 
hardly two counties in England where the same rate of 
wages prevails. Agricultural labourers in the North get 
about 50 per cent, higher wages than the same class 
earn in the South and West.-^ There is a London rate, 
a Liverpool rate, a Manchester rate, and a Glasgow rate, 
in every trade. If the desire of wealth alone regulated 
wages, the workman would invariably migrate from those 
places where wages were low to those where they were 
high, and the rate would thus become uniform. 

Perhaps the only place where an approach has been 
made to a realisation of this state of things is at 
England's antipodes. In the Australian colonies the 
labouring classes think nothing of undertaking a journey 
of hundreds, and even thousands, of miles in search of 
employment, for they pass freely from Victoria to 
Queensland, and even to New Zealand, and back, when 
wages are higher in the one place than the other ; and 
when any new gold field is discovered in any part of 
Australia or New Zealand, they flock to it from all 
quarters by the thousand. But, then, all these colonies 
are under the same flag; the population are all of the 
same race ; they all speak the same language ; the 

1 Report of the Commission on the Employvient of Children and Young 
Persons in Agriculture, 1868. Work and Wages, by Thos. Brassey, p. 81. 
Workmen and Wages, by S. Ward, p. 156. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 21 

labouring classes have been inured to the nomadic life 
of the gold-digger, and few of them have any domestic ties 
of any kind ; the people are so hospitable that a man can 
travel from colony to colony at very little expense, and, 
lastly, the climate is so genial that one may sleep in the 
open air for nine months in the year with perfect 
impunity. Elsewhere, however, the migration is of a 
very languid character, and a moment's consideration 
will show that it could not well be otherwise. A man 
has feelings, habits, and opinions which do not always 
harmonize with mere wealth-getting propensities. Early 
associations with his place of birth count for something 
with him ; relatives, friends, and acquaintances bind him 
by. strong ties to certain localities ; and habits, which he 
cannot shake off at a moment's notice, make a frequent 
change of residence both unpleasant and inconvenient. 
He is, in fact, not the abstraction the deductionists 
represent him to be.-"- 

^ Curiously enougli the elder Mill adopted a similar metliod in Politics 
to that which his son subsequently took in Political Economy. The 
former took as his postulate the proposition that all men desire 
Power, the latter that all men desire Wealth, and both worked out their 
conclusions in the same manner by deduction. (See Essay on Govern- 
ment, by James Mill, in collected Essatjs, p. 9.) No one knew better 
than the author of the Analysis of the Human Mind, that man has other 
desires than that of power, but he chose to ignore them on that 
occasion, and thereby exposed himself to Macaulay's merciless on- 
slaught in the Edinhurgh Review, which is now better known than 
TJie Essay on Government which called it forth. It is a remarkable 
instance of human inconsistency, that a process of reasoning which 
should at once be all but unanimously rejected, not only as unsuitable, 
but as absurd, when applied to one department of human nature, should, 
when applied to another, not only be looked upon as perfectly proper, 



22 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

Let us see what would be the effect on industry if 
rpi^g this hypothesis were correct. Suppose an em- 

maxiniTim pj^Qygj^ ^ud employe to be both influenced by 
theory. i]^q gole motivo of obtaining the maximum of 
wealth with the minimum expenditure of labour or self- 
denial. The object of the employer is to get as much 
work done for as little money as possible ; the object of 
the employe is to get the highest wages for the smallest 
possible amount of work. They agree, we shall suppose, 
as to terms ; so much wages for so many hours' work. 
The workman knows nothing of what is implied by the 
word Duty anymore than his employer ; the social affec- 
tions are not represented on the one side or the other ; 
they have nothing in common between them but only this, 
that each is desirous of securing an advantage over the 
other. With the workman everything that he does is 
done grudgingly. His own and not his employer's 
interests are alone thought of. He takes no pride in 
his work ; he never does anything but what he is com- 
pelled to do ; and if he occasionally makes an extra 
effort he regards that only as so much loss. What 
would be the value of such services to an employer? 
The employer, of course, pursues a precisely similar 
course towards his workman. Each endeavours to cheat 
the other all he can, and sees no harm in it, for the only 
standard to guide them is their individual interests, and, 
according to this standard, what is good for the one is 

but as the only possible method applicable, and should maintain its 
ground unchallenged for a quarter of a century. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 23 

bad for the other, and vice versa. It is impossible to 
conceive of the existence of industrial activity under 
such conditions. 

Equally impossible is it to conceive of the existence 
of society under such circumstances. A man The 
of one idea is bad enough, but a man with one motive 
motive would become a pest to all around him, ^ ^°^^' 
and a community of such individuals would become a 
pest to itself. There could be no responsibility in such 
a case, for the individual would be entirely uncon- 
trollable in his actions. Even if the members of such 
a community were animated by the purest and most 
unselfish of motives, the desire to do good, the result 
would scarcely be an improvement on the present order 
of things. A society where every one was neglecting his 
own affairs and looking after the affairs of some one else, 
where no one had any personal wants or desires of his 
own to gratify, would be in a state of perpetual distrac- 
tion. The members of such a society would be helpless as 
children in matters affecting themselves, and officiously 
intermeddling where they were not wanted. What, 
then, would be the case if all the members of a com- 
munity were influenced by a single motive of an opposite 
kind? Suppose an individuul actuated solely by the 
desire of wealth. That motive would take entire pos- 
session of him. He would be absolutely irresponsible 
for his actions. Every thought and act would be 
directed towards the acquisition of wealth, as the sole 
end and purpose of life. He would have no scruple 



24 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

as to the means of attaining this end. He would feel 

himself under no obligations to speak the truth, keep 

his promises, or carry out his engagements. If his 

end could be better or easier attained by cheating, 

robbery, and even murder, there is no reason why, 

according to this hypothesis, cheating, robbery, and 

murder should not be resorted to. The desire of wealth 

would become avarice in its most hideous form, and the 

individual under the control of this passion would become 

a danger to society. These are the phenomena that 

would manifest themselves if the hypothesis in question 

were the correct one ; and the fact that such phenomena 

do not exist proves its worthlessness. 

While insisting that his hypothesis is the only correct 

one, Mill, nevertheless, shows his want of con- 
Even Mill 
admits his fidence in its truth by providing for the detec- 

hypothesis i • i i j_ i • 

to be in- tion of errors, which he sees to be mseparable 
a eqna e. £^q^ ^^g adoption. Political Economy, he tells 
us, inquires, ^'what are the actions which would be pro- 
duced by this desire if, within the departments in ques- 
tion, it were unimpeded by any other. In this way, a 
nearer approach is obtained than would otherwise be 
practicable, to the real order of human affairs in these 
departments. This approximation is then to be cor- 
rected by making proper allowance for the effects of any 
impulses of a different description, which can be shown 
to interfere with the result in any particular case. . . . 
So far as it is known, or may be presumed, that the 
conduct of man in the pursuit of wealth is under the 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 25 

collateral influence of any other of the properties of our 
nature than the desire of obtaining the greatest quantity 
of wealth with the least labour and self-denial, the con- 
clusions of Political Economy will so far fail of being 
applicable to the explanation or prediction of real events, 
until they are modified by a correct allowance for the 
degree of influence exercised by the other causes." •*■ It 
must be admitted that the prospect of arriving at the 
truth by this process is not reassuring. For, in the 
first place, the fundamental hypothesis is admitted to be 
insufficient of itself, as only an "approximation" of the 
truth can be obtained by its application. In the second 
place, this approximation has to be corrected where other 
impulses '' can be shown to interfere with the result in 
any particular case," while proof of such interference 
could only be shown by observation, or, in other words, 
by induction. Lastly, we presume, the " approximation " 
referred to has, when other motives intervene, to be 
corrected by adopting other kinds of hypotheses to suit 
particular cases, to be followed up independently in the 
same manner as the first. The result will only be an 
indefinite number of similar approximations. What is 
to be done with these when we get them ? The con- 
clusions arrived at by the first hypothesis, we are told, 
are to be modified by making a " correct allowance " for 
the degree of influence exercised by the other causes. 
But how, again, are we to ascertain ''the degree of 
influence exercised " except by induction ? and how are 

^ 8ome Unsettled Questions, p. 140. 



26 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

we to arrive at the " antecedent causes " except by the 
same process ? 

Not only does Mill admit that the results obtained by 

his peculiar process require to be corrected, 

also the he further admits the value of the inductive 

necessity 

of veri- method in verifying the results arrived at by 
deduction. "We cannot," he says, "too 
carefully endeavour to verify our theory, by com- 
paring, in the particular cases to which we have 
access, the results which it (the deductive method) 
would have led us to predict, with the most trustworthy 
accounts we can obtain from those which have been 
actually realized. The discrepancy between our antici- 
pations and the actual fact is often the only circumstance 
which would have drawn our attention to some impor- 
tant disturbing cause which we had overlooked. Nay, it 
oftens discloses to us errors in thought still more serious 
than the omission of what can with any propriety be 
termed a disturbing cause. It often reveals to us that 
the basis of our whole argument is insufficient ; that 
the data from which we had reasoned comprise only a 
part, and not always the most important part, of the 
circumstances by which the result is really deter- 
mined." ^ What does this mean if not the abandonment 
of the deductive method ? If, but for this verifying pro- 
cess, our deductions might be all wrong, what value can 
we possibly attach to the deductive method so far as its 
application to industrial phenomena is concerned ? 

^ Sovie Unsettled Questions, p. 154. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 27 

But, in truth, the making-allowance theory is not 

applicable in all cases. Motives are of various „, 

kinds, and impel to various, and even opposite, proper- 
allowance 

courses of action, according to their character, tiieoiy in- 

. . applicable. 

One motive impels to one kind of action, an- 
other motive to action of an entirely different kind. I 
owe a man a sum of money, and if I am influenced solely 
by a desire to obtain the maximum of wealth by the 
minimum of expenditure, I will refuse to pay it ; if, on 
the other hand, I am actuated mainly by a sense of duty, 
I will pay what I owe whatever may be the consequences 
to myself. There can be no compromise between motives 
such as these, any more than there can be between a 
negative and an affirmative proposition, and there can, 
therefore, be no " proper allowances " made in such 
cases. It is not a question as to the extent of the modi- 
fying influence of one motive upon another, but of two 
motives which neutralize each other. 

If, then, the hypothesis in question fails to ex- 
plain all the phenomena of industrial life ; if 

Conclu- 

the results obtained by this process are only sion from 

the whole. 

approximately true, and can only be true by 
making allowances for disturbing causes ; and if, at 
the same time, it is found to be impossible to make 
these allowances, or to adjust motives which neutralize 
each other; and if, after all, the verifying or inductive 
process is still necessary to correct important, and 
even fundamental errors, arrived at by the deductive 
process, surely enough has been said to show that this 
method is inapplicable to the subject before us. 



28 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

In all investigations of which Man is the subject, 
The true the Only proper method of treatment is by 
^^the induction. Psychology, Ethics, Politics, and 
n uc ive. jj^dustrial Science, are all Sciences of Obser- 
vation. By the latter term we understand experience in 
its widest sense, including a recognition of the internal 
facts of consciousness as well as the external facts of 
human activity. Mill, indeed, contends that experience 
is altogether inefficacious in the moral sciences. " In 
chemistry and natural philosophy," he says, "we can 
not only observe what happens under all the combina- 
tion of circumstances which nature brings together, but 
we can also try an indefinite number of combinations. 
This we can seldom do in ethical, and scarcely ever in 
political, science. "We, therefore, study nature under 
great disadvantages in these sciences ; being confined 
by the limited number of experiments which take place 
(if we may so speak) of their own accord, without any 
preparation or management of ours ; in circumstances, 
moreover, of great perplexity, and never perfectly known 
to us, and with the far greater part of the processes con- 
cealed from observation." ^ It is no doubt true that 
the student of Industrial Science cannot treat human 
beings as the chemist can treat inert matter, nor is it 
necessary he should. Experiments enough are already 
made to his hand, and all that is requisite is that he 
should collect and apply them. Thus, the changes 
brought about in seasons of scarcity and plenty, in 

^ Some Unsettled Questions, pp. 146, 147. 



METHOD OF INVESTIGATION. 29 

periods of adversity and prosperity, of stagnation and 
activity in trade or commerce, affect production and 
consumption, prices, wages, and currency in a variety of 
ways, and are indirect experiments of the very greatest 
value. But we can also ''try an indefinite number of 
combinations." All changes we make in customs and 
excise duties, and in the mode of taxation, for example, 
are, in their very nature, experiments; and the whole 
course of legislation in banking, currency, usury, fore- 
stalling, wages, and combinations ; our factory acts, 
health acts, licensing acts, insolvent acts, insurance, 
landlord and tenant, and master and servants acts ; our 
corn laws, game laws, poor laws, patent, navigation, 
and sumptuary laws, are nothing but a long series of 
experiments, and we can extend these in any direction 
we think proper. 

Nor can we agree with Mill in the opinion that in 
the investigation of the moral sciences, as com- is more 
pared with the physical, the student stands at to moral 
any disadvantage whatever. Indeed, we believe pwioai 
quite the contrary to be the case. In the ^°^®^c®- 
physical sciences, as has been well said, we can 
only interrogate nature by a slow and tedious pro- 
cess, for nature is mute ; but in the moral sciences the 
object, man, is also the subject, and he is a conscious 
articulate being. He can explain his own feelings 
and describe the motives of his own acts.^ In the 

^ Lewis, On the Methods of Observations and Reasoning in Politics, 
vol. i. p. 165. See also Bain, Mental and Moral Science, p. 223. 



30 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

moral sciences, therefore, we get directly at the cause ; 
in the physical only indirectly. The individual knows 
what motives impel him to action; he can also ascer- 
tain the motives which influence other people around 
him, for he can interrogate them, and they can answer ; 
and he has, in addition, the actions themselves, which 
he can interpret in the same way as he can the phe- 
nomena of nature. There is, therefore, no special 
reason why the inductive method should not be appli- 
cable to the moral sciences, at least in the first instance. 
Once the facts have been correctly ascertained, deductive 
reasoning may be founded on them, but not before. 
Deduction properly begins where induction ends. 



( 31 ) 



CHAPTEE III. 

A-LLEGED SUFFICIENCY OF SBLF-INTEEEST. 

The principle that underlies the whole system of the 
English school of Political Economy is self- Thedoo-ma 
interest. This is regarded not only as an es- ^*^*®^- 
sential force, but as an all-sufficient one. It needs no 
supplementing, and it brooks no interference. So far 
from requiring to be adjusted or regulated by any other 
force, it is the grand regulator of all other forces. What 
wonder, then, that writers of this school never tire of 
expatiating on the great and manifold blessings which 
flow from this principle, that the very contemplation 
of these fill their minds with awe and admiration, 
till language almost fails to express the benign feel- 
ings with which it inspires them ? Its existence, accord- 
ing to the writers referred to, betokens a wise and 
beneficent arrangement of Providence.-^ It is a sublime 
contrivance which indicates the benevolent purposes of 
the Deity .^ Only let it have full scope, and wealth and 

^ Whateley, Lectures on Political Economy, p. 103. 
^ Bowen, Principles of Political Economy, p. 120. 



32 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

prosperity, such as the world has never seen, will follow 
in its course. Like the rain from heaven, it sheds its 
blessing on the just and on the unjust. A man has 
only to pay exclusive regard to his own interests, and to 
be totally oblivious of the interests of every one around 
him, and he will infallibly ensure the good of all. The 
purely selfish man is a benefactor to his species in spite 
of himself. " A gain to each is a gain to all," as 
Bastiat tersely puts it. " The grand, the noble theorem, 
expounded by political economists, is this," says Mr. 
Newman, "that the laws of the market which individual 
interests generate, are precisely those which tend best to 
the universal benefit." ^ McCuUoch even goes so far as 
to blame Adam Smith for not speaking in more glowing 
terms of his favourite principle ; for not saying, in fact, 
that in promoting such branches of industry as are 
most advantageous to themselves, individuals " neces- 
sarily promote such as are, at the same time, most 
advantageous to the public." ^ But the blame was quite 
undeserved, for Adam Smith said very much in effect 
what McCuUoch blamed him for not saying. " The effort 
of every man to better his condition " is, according to 
Adam Smith, "so powerful a principle that it alone, and 
without any assistance, is capable of carrying society 
to wealth and prosperity."^ This is putting the matter 
quite strong enough, surely ; but if self-interest be so 

^ Lectures on Political Economy, p. 63. 

^ Principles of Political Economy. Introduction. 

^ Wealth of Nations, "book iv. ch. v. 



ALLEGED SUFFICIENCY OF SELF-INTEEEST. 33 

omnipotent, and withal, so beneficent a principle, it must 
obyiously have been a mistake to endow mankind with 
other dispositions that might interfere with it. The' 
sentiments of justice, courage, fortitude, benevolence, 
and such like, which we affect to value so much, would, 
in such a case, not only be unnecessary, but, so far as 
they interfere with the beneficent operation of self- 
interest, positively pernicious. 

This dogma, on examination, scarcely accords with 
modern scientific ideas of man's nature. Those ^ot in ac- 
who adopt it have lost sight of the fact, that ^th^^e 
man is endowed with a constitution which ^^^^^^^ 

inan s 

subjects him to the operation of other laws mature, 
besides those which, we are gravely told, are neither 
mental nor physical, but are for the occasion , termed 
economic. The human organism being composed of 
certain physical elements, is subject to the oj^eration 
of physical laws, as, for instance, the law of gravi- 
tation, and the law of chemical affinity ; it is also 
subject to organic laws, as those of nutrition, of re- 
production, of growth, and decay; it is also subject 
to mental laws, as those of cogitation and volition. 
Mental laws do not supersede organic laws, nor do 
organic supersede physical laws, but each class operates' 
in its own sphere, simultaneously and independently. To 
say, therefore, that self-interest — the desire of wealth, 
or the desire of every man to better his condition, or by 
whatever name it is called — is alone sufficient to lead 
individuals and nations to wealth and prosperity, is 



34 , INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

equivalent to saying not only that a single motive is to 
supersede all other impulses, desires, or sentiments 
whatever, but all physical and organic forces as well, 
so far at least as the economic well-being of mankind is 
concerned. 

But, further, those who contend for the sufficiency 
Nor with 0^ self-interest in industrial action seem to 
facts. forget that some people desire to prosper, 

and appear indeed for a while to prosper, at other 
people's expense; that, in fact, there are thieves and 
cheats in the world ; that a large, and even respectable, 
so far as respectability now goes, section of the com- 
munity make their living, and even fortunes and titles, 
by making and selling fabrics that are guaranteed not 
to wear, by making and selling goods that are short 
of their proper weight or measure, and by making 
and selling adulterated food, drink, and even drugs 
that kill when they ought to cure. 

As the so-called laws of Political Economy, as ex- 
pounded by this school, are simply an exposition of the 
mode in which self-interest operates, I propose, in the 
two following chapters, to discuss at some length the 
tendency of this force. 



( 35 ) 



CHAPTEE IV. 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 



Demand and Supply is different from Competition, though 
they are generally spoken of as one and the same ^.^ 
thing. Strictly speaking, Demand and Supply between 

"til IS 3jI1CI 

indicates the relation between a buyer and a competi- 
tion, 
seller, or between a seller and a buyer, whereas 

Competition indicates the relation between two or more 
buyers and a seller, or two or more sellers and a buyer. 
Demand and Supply has reference to the exchange of two 
articles between two or more persons ; Competition has 
also reference to exchange, but is complicated by demand 
on the part of two or more persons for the same article. 
Demand and Supply is a simple process of exchange; 
Competition is a double process, as there is first the 
struggle among competitors for the article and after- 
wards the exchange of it. Thus, when one person 
desires to buy an article and another desires to sell, ex- 
change is said to be regulated by Demand and Supply ; 
but when two or more persons desire to buy the same 



36 - INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

article, and only one person desires to sell, tlie two or 
more buyers have first to settle their differences amongst 
themselves, and subsequently with the seUer, and thus 
exchange becomes complicated by the element of Com- 
petition. 

Here it may be necessary to explain the meaning of 
the terms Demand and Sui^jply. By Demand 

Meaning 

oftiieterm Mill Understands the "desire combined with a 
power to purchase," or, as Adam Smith called 
it, "effectual demand," and by Supply, "the quantity of 
any commodity offered for sale."-^ But why should we 
speak of "effectual demand" any more than of "effectual 
supply " ? In every case of sale and purchase there is 
an act of exchange, and in every act of exchange both 
parties to it stand in the same relation to each other, 
and both are supposed to be mutually benefited by the 
transaction. A beggar, says Adam Smith, may desire a 
diamond, but his desire would not be effectual if he had 
not the means of purchasing it ; and this reasoning is 
endorsed by both Mill and Thornton. Practically, how- 
ever, a desire must always be considered as combined 
with a power. The desire of the beggar for the diamond 
would be "effectual demand" if no one desired to pos- 
sess it but himself. The desire, to be " effectual," must 
be capable of satisfying the desire of the holder, and 
nothing more, and a beggar may be as capable of doing 
this as any one else. "Effectual demand" is a demand 
on the one side that is related to a demand on the other; 

^ Principles, vol. i. book iii. eh. ii. 3. 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 37 

that is to say, it is Correlative Demand. If another man 
offered more for the diamond than the beggar was able 
to give, the exchange, if effected, would then have been 
determined by Competition. 

It is difficult to understand what is really meant by 
"effectual demand," or what purpose is served by the 
adoption of the term. Does it mean demand effected, 
that is, commodities actually purchased? Or does it 
only mean demand capable of being effected? If the latter, 
how can it be ascertained when a demand is capable 
of being effected except by the test of the market, in 
other words, by actual sale ? Anything short of this 
would not be effectual, but only tentative. If the former, 
then '^ effectual demand" would cease to be demand at 
all as soon as a sale was effected. To add to the con- 
fusion, the correlative of "effectual demand" has been 
defined, as we have seen, " the quantity of a commodity 
offered for sale," which implies that the sale has not 
yet been effected. Clearly, the adjunct " effectual," if 
used at all, is as applicable to the seller as to the buyer ; 
and if we are to suppose the desire to buy must be 
" combined with a power," so also must the desire to 
sell, that is to say, that the seller may have to come 
down to the price fixed by the buyer, as weU as the 
buyer come up to the price fixed by the seller. If the 
seller demands too much he will have to lower his price 
to the demand of the buyer, precisely in the same way 
as the buyer, if he offers too little, will have to raise his 
price to the demand of the seller. 



38 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

With regard to the mode in which Demand and 
^ ,, . Supply, or, as I prefer it, Correlative Demand 
from this operates, I have to observe, first, that the ability 

law. 

to purchase an article does not increase with 
the demand for it. On the contrary, the very strength 
or intensity of a desire may be a bar to its satisfaction 
by increasing the difficulty of purchasing. A starving 
man may have an overwhelming desire to purchase food, 
but he will not obtain it by desiring ; he must have the 
means of satisfying the man who has it. Secondly, the 
ability to purchase is often in inverse ratio to the desire. 
The man who has a commodity he is not particularly 
desirous of selling, possesses a power over another man 
who has an intense desire to purchase it of him ; intense 
desire is, indeed, often incompatible with the power to 
purchase, or otherwise, if the power existed, the desire 
would at once be gratified. 

If these propositions be true, the real nature of De- 
-j. . mand and Supply will be apparent enough, 

moral dis- Demand and Supply is not essentially just, for 

tinctions. 

it recognizes no moral distinctions. It is not 
universally and invariably beneficent, for it ignores the 
difference between wants and desires — a difference which 
is of the highest importance from an ethical point of 
view. A want differs from a desire inasmuch as the latter 
implies the alternative of abstinence, which the former 
does not. A want is a necessity ; a desire is a super- 
fluity, the gratification of which may be dispensed with. 
The demand for the conveniences and luxuries of life 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 39 

may, or may not, be complied with ; the demand for 
subsistence is imperative, and permits of no alterna- 
tive. Wants and desires, therefore, can never exchange 
on equal terms. 

Is the contest between wants and desires ? Then 
the desires will be the gainer and the wants Contest 
the loser. As a want is stronger than a desire, wantrand 
a man will sacrifice more for the satisfaction of ^®^i^®^- 
the former than he will for the latter. The greater the 
want the greater the sacrifice ; the less the desire the 
less the sacrifice. A starving man wants food, and 
another man has plenty of it, but no want, only a desire 
to make the best bargain he can. But the want must 
exchange with the desire, and the starving man may 
have to sacrifice all he has in order to satisfy the 
demand of the man who possesses what he requires. 
A famine occurred in Orissa in 1866, and the British 
authorities made the stupendous blunder of acting on 
the law of Demand and Supply in the case of the starving 
millions. They measured the wants of the famine- 
stricken inhabitants with the desires of the traders and 
merchants. It was contrary to the principles of Political 
Economy, forsooth, to interfere with the course of trade .-^ 



^ It is beyond dispute that tlie Board of Revenue in Calcutta had 
intimation of the approaching scarcity in Orissa. The famine occurred 
early in 1866, and in October, 1865, Mr. Barlow, at Pooree, ventured to 
suggest to the Board that the Government should import large quantities 
of rice to avert the horrors of famine, but the Board declined to interfere, 
distinctly alleging as their reason that such a course " would be contrary 
to the principles of political economy." Later on, when the inhabitants 



40 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

This is not the only instance on record, but it is the 
most prominent in recent times, where a government has 
based its policy on the law of Demand and Supply ; but 
I venture to hope that it will be the last time it will be 
attempted by a British government. In 1874, when a 
famine was threatened in Lower Bengal, the British 
authorities adopted a different policy from that carried 
out in Orissa in such a relentless manner a few years 
previously. 

Is it a question of exchange ? The holder of the com- 
Contesfc inodity will endeavour to gauge the strength of 
between ^j^g desire of the intending purchaser, and if he 

desires. ° ^ 

thinks the latter is very desirous of pm^chasing, 
he wiU demand a high price ; if he believes the commodity 
is a prime necessity to him, that . he must have it, and 
cannot purchase it elsewhere, he will extract the very 
highest price out of him that he can. The intending 
purchaser, on the other hand, is perfectly well aware of 
the mental process going on in the mind of the holder, 
and acts accordingly. He tries to make it appear that he 
is not particularly anxious to purchase ; that, in fact, it 
is quite a matter of indifference to him whether he does 
so or not, knowing well that if he allowed the other to 

were dying at the rate of 4000 a week, and the Board had again been 
urged, to do something, they made the following viemorandum : — " On 
general grounds they (the Board) had a very strong objection to interfere 
with the course of trade." Again, in May following, when the famine 
was at its height, in answer to another remonstrance from the local 
authorities, the Board replied that " it (the famine) may be safely left to 
produce its own effect ; " and produce its own effect it did, for a million 
and a quarter of haooan beings died of starvation. 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. . 41 

anderstand that he had no alternative but to purchase, 
he would have to pay an exorbitantly high price. 

Is it a question of wages ? The weaker side suffers 
again. An employer wishes to increase his m^g^rated 
profits, and he looks around him to see where ^J *^®^ 

case of a 

he can effect a reduction in his expenditure. He wages 

. . f -, • dispute. 

decides on reducing the wages of his men, 
because he believes he can take them at a disadvantage. 
Accordingly he waits his opportunity. This arrives 
when there are indications of a dullness of trade, and at 
once he discharges a number of men as a preliminaryj 
giving the rest notice that their wages will be reduced. 
The men submit because they think they cannot help 
themselves, the action taken by their employer having 
impressed them with the belief that they are not indis- 
pensable to him. The workmen, on the other hand, 
adopt the same kind of tactics when they demand an 
increase. They do not make this demand when business 
is dull, as it might be a convenience rather than other- 
wise to their employer if they left his establishment at 
such a time. Their opportunity for striking with effect 
arrives when business is brisk and profits high, for at 
such a time their employer will rather concede their 
demand than run the risk of losing his profits. And the 
workmen, when their trades union have determined on an 
increase, are also very circumspect in their selection of a 
first victim. They do not attempt to try conclusions, at 
all events in the first instance, with an employer who has 
ample means of resisting them, or if they do, it is at a 



42 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

time when he has time contracts on hand ; but they 
carefully select a man of straw, and with whom the 
stoppage of business, even for a day, would be ruin. 
An employer under such circumstances cannot help 
himself, and succumbs at once. 

All attempts to settle the wages difficulty by Supply 
and Demand have hitherto ignominiously failed. If 
capital take advantage of labour at one time, labour 
takes advantage of capital at another. To-day it is 
labour that is down, to-morrow it is capital ; and so the 
conflict is perpetually renewed. The difficulty will never 
be got rid of till we come back to first principles. In all 
disputes of this nature the claims of capital and of 
labour should both be taken into consideration and 
equitably adjusted. The question with the employer 
should not be how little can he compel his workmen to 
take, oi: with the workman how much can he get out of 
his employe^-; but the question with each should be 
what would be fair and equitable to both the one and the 
other. The true solution of the wages difficulty is to 
be found in the Courts of Arbitration, where the prin- 
ciples I contend for are fully acted upon. 

It is a well-established fact that when the demand for 
Effect of employment is in excess of the demand for 
on the rate labour, wagcs fall. The excess may be due 

of wages. _ 

to various causes, which we need not here 
enumerate. But let us suppose it is due to an increase 
in the number of labourers from reproduction. The 
increase in this case, then, would be due to an organic 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 43 

law. But why should this affect the rate of wages ? 
What necessary connection is there between the number 
of labourers and the rate at which their services are 
remunerated ? The means of payments, the so-called 
wages-fund, is, in the case supposed, not encroached 
upon in any way. The employers of labour are not in the 
least affected ; their profits are not reduced, and they bear 
no share of the expense of maintaining the additional 
number of labourers. It is the contest again between 
wants and desires. The labourers demand employment, 
the employers demand labour ; but as the labourers' wants 
must be satisfied, they are compelled to sacrifice more 
than their employers, who have the alternative of absti- 
nence which the labourers have not. The labourers feel 
the pinch of hunger and they give more work than before 
for the same remuneration, or take less remuneration 
for the same work. The justice or beneficence of this 
arrangement is not very apparent, for the employers, on 
the one hand, secure a gain which they did not earn, 
and the labourers, on the other, suffer a loss which 
they do not deserve, and at a time when they can least 
afford it. Nor is the expenditure in wages increased in 
consequence of the increase in the number of labourers. 
The amount expended will certainly be smaller instead of 
greater, unless employers extend their operations and so 
give employment to more hands, which they may, or may 
not, be able to do. Economic writers, however, assume 
that a greater amount would invariably be expended 
under such circumstances ; and as they say this would 



M INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

necessarily be distributed among a larger number of 
persons, it is taken as another exemplification of the 
wise and beneficent purposes that are served by Demand 
and Supply. 

Let us now suppose that the number of labourers 
still continues to increase. The supposition is not an 
improbable one, for apart altogether from the operation 
-p . . of organic law, an increase would take place 

Injurious *=• ^ 

effects of from economic causes alone. In the first 

low wages. 

place, it is a well-ascertained fact that in 
periods of great industrial depression, the labouring 
classes suffer more severely than the classes who are 
removed above want, and that the class immediately 
above the very poorest, who obtain their living by 
ordinary manual labour, are almost invariably dragged 
down to the lowest level, and thereby help to swell the 
ranks of competitors for the ordinary kinds of employ- 
ment. In the second place, the very fact that a man is 
unable, by his own individual exertions, to comfortably 
provide subsistence for himself and family, compels him 
to have recourse to the members of his own household 
in order to eke out a living, who thus become competitors 
with him for employment. It may be observed that in 
almost all the accounts of the earnings of the agricul- 
tural labourers in the South and West of England that 
have been published in the press from time to time, the 
wages of the wife and children are always included in 
those of the husband and father. If, then, the number 
of labourers continued in this way to increase, and the 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 45 

demand for employment increased in proportion, as 
economists insist would be the case, employers would, as 
before, take advantages of the necessities of the labourers 
and reduce their wages till they might be insufficient for 
bare subsistence. In such a case the labourers would 
be less able to perform the duties required of them, and 
numbers of them would starve or become a charge on 
the community. Thus the effect would be in the highest 
degree injurious, whether regarded from a moral, 
social, or economical point of view. It would be in- 
jurious morally, because labour would be deprived of its 
just reward ; it would be injurious socially, because the 
labourers would become a burden on society ; and it 
would be injurious economically, because labour would 
become less efficient. 

I may be told that enlightened self-interest would 
always prevent the occurrence of such a dis- ^^.^^j^^jj^^ 
astrous result as I have here indicated. But f.^°^ ®^- 

lignteneQ. 

I am not so sure of this. Enlightened self- self- 
interest, 
interest is still self-interest, qualify it as you 

will. " A human being, by cherishing interested associ- 
ations, does not," says Mr. Bain, *' as a matter of course 
attain to either justice or beneficence. Even the most 
far-sighted prudence, as regards self, would not develope 
the whole virtue of beneficence."^ Enlightened self- 



* Note to Mill's Anahjsis, vol. ii. p. 304 See also Mental and Moral 
Science, p. 240; Mill, Fragments on Mackintosh, pp. 51, 52, and Hume's 
Essays, vol. ii. p. 223, where the reality of moral distinctions is in- 
sisted on. 



46 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

interest did not prevent the physical deterioration of the 
Spitalfields weavers, who are said to be rapidly dying 
out, and their children, or such of them as have survived 
the struggles of poverty in early life, are, according to 
the testimony of medical men in the eastern districts of 
London, exhibiting the usual signs of impaired constitu- 
tions, such as narrow chests, imperfect muscular de- 
velopment, and very faulty teeth. Enlightened self- 
interest did not prevent the over-working of women and 
children in factories, to the injury of their health, and 
the physical and moral well-being of the rising gene- 
ration, for the early factory acts were passed in the face 
of the strongest opposition from the employers. En- 
lightened self-interest did not prevent the wages of 
agricultural labour in the south of England being 
reduced to such an extent as actually to deprive the 
labourers and their families of a sufficiency of nourish- 
ment to maintain them in health and vigour, as was 
proved in an inquiry instituted by the Government in 
1863, and conducted by Mr. Simon, one of its own officers ; 
and it did not save the poor needlewomen of London 
from pauperism, or worse, for the price paid for needle- 
work in the metropolis is, and has for years been so 
small, that competent authorities have declared that, 
work as hard as they may, the needlewomen are unable 
to earn what will obtain them the bare necessaries of 
life at their occupation, and they are thus forced to 
supplement their earnings by outdoor relief from the 
poor rates, or to adopt other and even less creditable 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 47 

means of obtaining a livelihood.^ As long as the 
present supply of labour is kept up, employers, who 
regulate their conduct by the dictates of self-interest, 
will not sacrifice present gains for futm-e prospects, 
and will seldom trouble themselves about the welfare 
of others. 

Let us now see how Demand and Supply operates in 
seasons of scarcity. If self-interest were as 

The rate 

beneficent in its operation as alleged, this is of wages 

, , ' -I ^ 1 • 1 T 1 in relation 

the very period when employment would be to the 
plentiful and wages high. But the very re- pj^^o^^gioj^g, 
verse is almost invariably the case ; for when 

^ The subject of giving outdoor relief to this class of work-people was 
formally brought before the President of the Poor Law Board (Mr. 
Goschen) in December, 1869, who made a minute to this effect : — " It 
is illegal to administer relief so long as a person is in employment and 
wages are earned, though such wages may be insuflficient. The Poor 
Law authorities ought to hold aloof and refuse to supplement the receipts 
of the family, actually offering in preference to take upon themselves 
the entii'e cost of their maintenance." To this minute the Holbom 
guardians replied as follows : — " The guardians do not wish to disguise 
the truth. They are convinced that it is by means of the relief afforded 
to the outdoor infirm and more or less disabled poor that the competition 
in the lower forms of labour is increased to such an extent as to reduce 
the wages paid for it. The price of various forms of needlework could 
not be maintained at the present starvation standard, but that so much 
is done by persons in the receipt of parochial relief. A pauper of middle 
age, unfit perhaps for any very active occupation, requires to sit at work 
for a remuneration which rarely exceeds one halfpenny per hour. A 
botching shoemaker ekes out his parish relief by wages which, with hard 
work, range from 4(Z, to 8d. per day; a needle-hand the same; a slop 
tailoress and renovator only a little more ; and even the widow who goes 
out charing, though forced to take a lower and lower rate of wage 
according to the numbers in the district, is only enabled to do so under 
parish help." 



48 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

provisions are scarce the price is high, and labour is ill 
rewarded. The cause of this is obvious enough. The 
high price of provisions increases the cost of living to 
all classes, employers as well as workmen. The em- 
ployers, therefore, when they find their expenses in- 
creased, naturally enough endeavour to curtail them, 
and first the services of one man and then of another 
are seen to be unnecessary, and are accordingly dis- 
pensed with. The same thing occurs in domestic 
service. In households where three servants were for- 
merly kept two only are now retained, and where there 
were two, an attempt is now made to do with only 
one. The result is that large numbers of work-people 
of both sexes are thrown out of employment. But 
this is not all. The fact that numbers are thrown 
out of employment affects also the rate of wages of 
those who are employed, for rather than go idle some 
will consent to take less wages, and what some will 
take others cannot refuse, and so the rate is reduced to 
those whose services are retained. The fact is indeed 
beyond dispute, that wages never rise in seasons of 
scarcity, but almost invariably fall.-^ The inevitable 
result is a wide-spread destitution among the mass of 
the community. 



^ See Tooke's History of Prices, vol. i. pp. 14, 226, 227, and note at 
p. 329; also vol. iii. pp. 51 — 53. On the other hand, a rise of wages 
almost always accompanies, or immediatelj follows, a fall in prices. 
In 1833-34-35, for example, the price of wheat was lower than it had 
been for 70 years previously, while employment was abundant and 
wages high. 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 49 

This law of Demand and Supply operates to the dis- 
advantasfe of the weaker side in a still more t^. .. 
extraordinary way. The scarcity of food is J^°^ 

•^ "^ "^ between 

due to the operation of physical laws ; the suf- neces- 
saries and 
ferings of the poor are due to the operation luxuries. 

of organic laws ; but another law, a purely mental 
or economic one, now comes into operation and posi- 
tively augments these sufferings. Economists point to 
the fact, as further illustrative of beneficent design, 
that when any commodity becomes scarce, the effect 
of the scarcity is mitigated by the high price now 
charged for it causing reduced consumption. This 
is no doubt correct in the case of ordinary commodities, 
but when the commodity is a necessary of life, as bread, 
for instance, the law is the reverse of beneficent, for, 
in this case, the increase in price in usually out of all 
proportion to the deficiency in the supply. The dis- 
proportion is explained on the principle that, this com- 
modity being a necessary of life, the desire to purchase it 
becomes the more intense as the scarcity is felt ; or, in 
other words, that the price is in proportion to the desire 
to purchase, and not in proportion to the deficiency of 
the supply. Dr. Chalmers has pointed out that when 
articles of luxury are scarce, the increase in price is 
never so high as in the case of the necessaries of life.-^ 
Wheat, for example, has been known to quadruple in 
price when the deficiency was only one half.^ Now the 



* Christian and Economic Polity, vol. ii. p. 252. 
^ See Tooke's History of Prices, vol. i. p. 12. 

E 



50 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

poorer classes are necessarily the greatest sufferers 
when the price of bread is high, as its purchase 
forms the chief part of their expenditure, and they 
actually increase the price upon themselves by the very 
intensity of their desires. Here, then, we have an 
economic law, which, so far from ameliorating the 
severity of natural laws, positively aggravates their 
severity. 

Fortunately, we are not left to conjecture on this 
Case of matter, for we are furnished with a well-au- 
Mr. Milne, thenticated case which illustrates the principle 
I am endeavouring to establish. In 1814 a Mr. Milne, 
a landowner, gave the following evidence before a Select 
Committee of the House of Lords, on the Corn Laws : — 
" I wished," he said, "to enclose a farm at the end of the 
year 1812, or in the beginning of 1813. I sent for my 
bailiff and told him that I had enclosed, about twenty- 
five years ago, a good deal of land ; that the inclosure 
at that time cost 3s. 5d. per ell of 37 inches; that a neigh- 
bour of mine, two or three years ago, had made similar 
enclosures which cost him 5s. 5d. per ell ; that I thought 
he had paid too much, and that I ought to do it cheaper. 
The answer I got from my bailiff was, that provisions 
were very high, that labourers were doing double work, 
and that of course there was less demand for labour, 
and that he could do these inclosures last year at a 
cheaper rate than I had ever done them, and he actually 
executed these inclosures at 2s. 6J. per ell. He again 
came to me and told me that I had proposed to him to 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 51 

do some ditching upon another farm, which I did not 
intend to do till about a twelvemonth, from the cir- 
cumstance of not being fully in possession of the whole 
farm. He requested that I would allow him to do it 
that season, as he could do it so much cheaper, and 
that a great many labourers were idle from having little 
work, in consequence of those employed doing double 
work. I desired him to go on with that labour likewise, 
and he actually contracted for my large ditches at 6d. 
an ell, which I do not think I could now do under from Is. 
to Is. 6d., in consequence of the fall in provisions." Here 
we have, as in the case supposed, the joint operation of 
physical, organic, and economic laws. Now note the 
operation of the latter on the two former. Food is 
scarce and dear, but employment instead of being more 
plentiful is less so. Owing to the high price of food, 
employers curtail their expenses, and labour being 
less in demand and the demand for employment 
increased, wages fall. But, unlike the employers, the 
labourers cannot adopt the alternative of abstinence ; 
they cannot do without food, and to obtain this they 
must find employment. Food being dear, and employ- 
ment scarce and more in demand than formerly, the 
condition of the labourers is aggravated by their very 
necessities. They not only compete among themselves 
for what little employment is offered, and consequently 
help by their own act to reduce wages still lower, 
but they now do double the amount of work for less 
remuneration than they obtained when provisions were 



52 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

cheap, and thereby actually deprive other labourers of 
a share of what remains. 

One more illustration of economic beneficence, and 
mfEerent I have done. It is a well-ascertained fact 
on^capi^ai ^^^^ whcn any commodity in general demand 
an a our. ^^ggg jj^ price (money alone excepted, in regard 
to which the opposite effect takes place), the price of 
other commodities falls in proportion, owing to the fact 
that the income of consumers does not increase with 
the increase in prices. The consequence is, that when 
the price of a commodity of this description, say bread, 
is high, consumers economize in other directions, 
in order to make good the deficiency in their income 
caused by the additional expenditure on this particular 
article. There is, therefore, less demand for those 
other commodities, as well as for labour, which is a 
commodity in general demand, and the price of them 
consequently falls. The wealthy man, however, is 
scarcely affected by the high price of bread, as this 
forms only a small proportion of his expenditure, and 
the increase in price is, to a great extent, compensated 
by the fall in the price of the other commodities, labour 
included, which he purchases. But with the poor man 
the case is different. Bread being with him the chief 
article of expenditure, when the price is high it bears 
heavily on his income, while his labour, at the same 
time, shares in the general depreciation. Thus the 
poor suffer in two ways ; first, in the increased price 
of the necessaries of life, and, secondly, in the decrease 
in the value of their labour. 



DEMAND AND SUPPLY. 53 

These anomalies are all the more striking when 
we consider the relation of capital to laboiir. Capital 
is an instrument that costs nothing to keep ; it is 
not subject to tear and wear ; it never loses bulk, 
and if lent out at interest it doubles itself in the 
course of so many years. It is far otherwise with 
the instrument of labour. The labourer has to be 
maintained at considerable cost, whether earning wages 
or not ; he has to make provision for sickness and old 
age, and the worn-out instrument has to be replaced. 
Whichever way we look at it, indeed, we shall find that 
capital has the advantage. The man whose necessities 
are great will have to pay more for what he requires 
than the man whose wants are less urgent. The trader 
of limited means, if he buys on credit, will be charged 
more for his goods than the man who has a good 
balance at his bankers. The poor man, who buys his 
necessaries in small quantities, will have to pay a higher 
price for them than the rich man who purchases on a 
larger scale. The less consideration a man requires 
the more he gets, and the more he needs the less 
is shown to him. In the economic world honesty 
counts as nothing, and help comes in the inverse order 
of a man's needs. 

With such glaring inequalities staring them in the 
face, it is not to be wondered at that economic writers 
repudiate the idea that the principles of their science are 
in accordance with our notions of a just administration 
of the scheme of things. Prof. Cairnes, in his latest 



54 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

and most ambitious work, frankly confesses that he is 
unable to see, in the results flowing from the action 
of economic laws, any realization of the principles of 
abstract justice.^ 

^ " I am unable to find in the maxims of abstract justice any key to 
the practical problems of the distribution of wealth ; and I am bound 
to add that just as little can I discover in the actual results flowing 
from the action of economical laws a realization of the principles of 
abstract justice." — Some Leading Questions of Political Economy, p. 320. 

Prof. Walker makes a similar admission: — "It cannot be contro- 
verted," he says, " that the tendency of purely economic forces is to 
widen the differences existing in the constitution of industrial society, 
and to subject any and every person and class of persons who may, 
from any cause, be at disadvantage in respect to selling his or their 
service or product, to constantly increasing burdens." — The Wages 
Question, p. 166. 



( 55 ) 



CHAPTEE V. 

ON COMPETITION. 

The sufficiency of self-interest once granted, freedom of 
contract, or unrestricted Competition, follows 
as a matter of course, as it would be absurd o?sei^^^^ 
to assert that this principle was all-sufficient, ^^^^rest 

•^ -^ implies 

and at the same time set limits to its ope- ^^^e- 

stricted 

ration. Unrestricted competition is therefore competi- 
tion, 
regarded by the English school of economists 

as the foundation-stone of their whole system. Indeed, 
Mill goes so far as to say that it is only on this basis 
that Political Economy is entitled to be called a science.^ 
This is a principle, therefore, that admits of no com- 
promise with the disciples of this school ; and it is but 
fair to say that, in theory at least, they have accepted 
it without the slightest reservation. With them Com- 
petition is the grand regulator of industrial action. It 
is "beneficent, just, and equalizing."^ It is in the 
market of the world " what gravitation is in the 



* Princijoles, vol. ii. book iv. cli. iv. 2. 
2 Phitology, p. 339. 



56 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

meclianism of the heavens, an all-combining, all-balan- 
cing, and beneficent law." ^ It is " the most progressive, 
the most equalizing, and the most communistic of all 
the provisions to which Providence has confided the 
direction of human progress." ^ This language, however, 
is scarcely justified by facts, for there are many cir- 
cumstances in which competition is the reverse of 
beneficent, just, or equalizing ; and so far from its being 
the all-balancing, all-combining law they represent it to 
be, the principle itself is a provision which requires 
adjustment. Every one knows that excessive com- 
petition produces enormous waste, and that it leads to 
the perpetration of fraud, the extent of which is 
generally in proportion to the intensity or keenness of 
the competition. 

We shall get rid of the high-flowing sentiment that 
, , . , surrounds this subiect as soon as we have ascer- 

The object '' 

of compe- tained what the object of competition really is. 

tition. 

The vulgar idea is that the object of competition, 
or, at all events, one of its results, is to reduce prices. 
But this is neither its object nor a necessary effect of its 
operation, as a moment's consideration will show. Com- 
petitors do not desire to lower or to raise prices, but to 
obtain possession of something some one else has, and 
which some one else desires. Sellers compete in order 
to secure a market ; buyers compete in order to secure 
possession of some commodity. There is nothing just 

^ Newman's Lectures on Political Economy, p. 119. 
^ Bastiat's Harmonie Economique, p, 407. 



ON COMPETITION. 57 

or beneficent in one man outbidding another for the 
possession of an article, or in underselling another in 
order to secure a purchaser or a market. In either 
case the successful competitor attains his end at the 
expense of his rival ; and in neither case is it intended 
that others than himself should derive any benefit 
whatever from the transaction. 

Competition may be better than custom (which, 
according to Mill, takes precedence of compe- ^ 

^ Custom, 

tition in the order of development), when the compe- 
tition, and 
circumstances are changed under which the co-oper- 

latter grew up. Co-operation, again, may be 

better than competition when the latter is carried to 

excess. But even co-operation, could we conceive it 

capable of universal application, can never be relied 

upon, for it rests mainly on self-interest, and a man 

can never be made to act more disinterestedly by being 

made more selfish. Custom, local or vested interest, or 

by whatever name it may be called, may be good in the 

earlier stage of industrial development, as, for instance, in 

the case of patents and rights which are always granted 

for a limited time ; competition may be good in a more 

advanced stage ; and co-operation may, in a still higher 

stage, be better than either; but they are all mere 

expedients, provisions, or methods of carrying out the 

principles of fair dealing, and which, like the ceremonial 

law when it has lost its symbolic meaning, or positive law 

when interpreted according to the letter and not according 

to the spirit, are liable to abuse, and only act beneficially 



58 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

when they express the true ethical sentiment. If sellers 
never demanded more than a fair profit on their goods, 
they would have fewer competitors to contend with, 
there would be less dishonest rivalry, and the public 
would be better served.^ There can be little doubt 
that the enormous profits often demanded provokes 
excessive competition, and excessive competition leads 
to the dishonest practices which disgrace modern com- 
merce. The fact that sellers are ready to take less 
for their goods than they demand proves that they asked 
too much in the first instance, and the existence of 
excessive competition in any branch of trade is pre- 
sumptive evidence that the profits in that trade have at 
one time been exorbitant. When the moral tone of the 
community is raised, when it is considered dishonourable 
to have two prices for the same article, and when a 
seller takes it as a personal insult to be asked to take 
less for a commodity than he demands, competition will 
wear a very different aspect from what it does at present. 
It is quite a mistake to suppose that competition 
invariably tends to reduce prices. It is only 

Tendency 

of compe- when sellers compete that prices are lowered, 

tition. 

for when buyers compete they are invariably 
raised. The object of the producer in engaging in any 

^ Prof. Cairnes asserts that there is a far greater amount of com- 
petition in the wholesale than in the retail trade, owing to the fact that 
retail dealers have fixed prices while the wholesale dealers have not, 
the former resting, as he says, " upon a moral rather than an economical 
basis," and he adds that the result is to " the advantage of all con- 
cerned." — Some Leading Questions, p. 128-130. 



ON COMPETITION. 59 

brancli of industry being profit, he will naturally take all 
the means at his command to increase that profit to the 
utmost. But a man will be able to make a larger profit 
if he has the whole market to himself than if he shared 
it with another, and, as a rule, the greater the amount of 
competition in a given market, the smaller will be the 
amount of profit to be divided among the competitors. 
It will thus become the object of every competitor to reduce 
the number of his rivals. The tendency of competition will 
therefore be in the direction of monopoly. A monopoly 
is said to exist when one man, or several acting together, 
hold entire possession of any commodity, or control any 
market. Competition exists when possession is dis- 
puted. If competitors, however, act exclusively with 
a view to their own interests, as we are told they must, 
it will be their main object to reduce competition to a 
minimum, or, in other words, to create a monopoly. 
Thus the principle from which the deductionist started, 
namely, the sufficiency of self-interest, instead of tending 
to competition, leads back ultimately to restriction in 
its worst possible form. 

The profits of producers are largest when consumption 
is in excess of production, and the prospect of 

Conditions 

sharing in these induces competition. When necessary 

.to annihi- 

production overtakes consumption, profits are late com- 
reduced, and no more competitors enter the ^^ ^ ^°^' 
field. When production is in excess of consumption, and 
competition goes on as before, profits may cease alto- 
gether, and then begins the struggle for existence among 



60 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

competitors. Eacli competitor will now endeavour to 
obtain the customers of the others, by fair means or 
foul, and the inevitable result will be that strength and 
cunning, as in the animal world, will prevail, while the 
weak and honest trader will go to the wall. In order to 
render competition successful, in other words, to establish 
a monopoly, one of two things, or both, are requisite on 
the part of a competitor. The first is the command of 
a large capital ; the second is the absence of all moral 
principle. 

As in a physical contest a strong man will, other 
things being equal, overcome a weak one, so 

The first 

condition, in any industrial contest the man of large 
capital will inevitably overcome the man of 
small means. The large capitalist has the game in his 
own hands. He can arrange his mode of attack, and 
fix the day of victory. All he has to do, if a seller, 
is to undersell his rival, and the lower he fixes 
his prices the sooner he accomplishes his purpose. If 
he sells at a loss, so much the better, for then the 
resources of his rival will be all the sooner exhausted. 
It is a simple question of figures. If A has a capital of 
d£10,000, and B who enters the field against him has 
a capital of ^50,000, B's capital will outlast A's in the 
proportion of five to one ; that is to say, B's chances of 
success will be five times better than A's. In such 
contests there are, of course, other conditions which go 
far to counterbalance the advantages of large capital, 
but in the present instance we are supposing these to 



ON COMPETITION. 61 

be absent, and that both start on equal terms in every 
respect except as regards capital. 

We are all familiar with the process which takes place 
when rival lines of coaches run on the same _ 

The case 

road. The first result is a reduction of the fares, where 

capitals 

commenced by one of the competitors, and fol- are 
lowed sooner or later by the other ; then other 
reductions follow till the traffic is carried on at a loss. 
When this point is reached, the matter becomes simply a 
contest between two capitals, in which the largest is sure 
to win. In carrying on the traffic at a loss, neither of 
the rival capitalists, however, has the slightest idea of 
benefiting the public, and, in the long run, the public 
will certainly not derive the slightest benefit from the 
contest, but rather the reverse, for the successful com- 
petitor, that is, the one who has established a monopoly, 
will take good care to recoup himself when the contest 
is over for all the losses he may have sustained while 
carrying it on. Thus the public, while they imagined 
they were getting an advantage from the low fares, were 
only assisting in creating a monopoly against them- 
selves, all the cost of establishing which will ultimately 
come out of their own pockets. 

This is the ordinary result of competition when one 
of the competitors has the command of a larger The case 
capital than is possessed by the others. When, capitals 
however, the capitals of competitors are more ^^"^ ^^"^^ * 
equal, and especially when they have each sunk a large 
portion of it in starting the business, competitors do not 



62 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

usually resort to the exhaustive process of crushing out 
one another, since they may attain their end by more 
direct means. Knowing that, in order to compete suc- 
cessfully, one or other of them must lose all his capital, 
they soon discover another method of achieving 
their object. The question being simply one of profit, 
the only matter for consideration with them is, Which is 
the most profitable, combination or competition ? Is it 
better to divide the spoil or quarrel over it ? If the 
latter alternative be accepted the contest will be a long 
one and the result uncertain, the successful competitor 
having moreover the prospect before him that he may 
have the same battle to fight over again with some new 
rival at some future time. If the former, competitors 
have only to fix prices to suit themselves and all will 
go smoothly, their capital safe, and their future profits 
secure. The London gas companies furnish an illus- 
tration of the working of this kind of combination. 
Each new company on starting claimed the support of 
the public, on the ground that competition was beneficial 
to them, and each commenced by making a reduction in 
the price of gas. But the reduction in every instance 
was only a temporary one, for no sooner had a company 
got beyond the preliminary stage, and established a 
firm footing, than it combined with the existing insti- 
tutions to raise the price; and this combination 
has now, by an arrangement amongst its members, 
apportioned to each company a particular district 
within which it has to confine its operations, and is left 



ON COMPETITION. 63 

free to charge whatever price it likes to consumers. 
Thus, instead of there being only one monopoly for all 
London, there is a separate monopoly in every district 
where a company exists, so that consumers are actually 
worse off now than they were before, as they have to 
maintain some seven or eight establishments instead of 
one, each of which has its separate staff of officers, 
buildings, mains, and capital on which interest has to 
be paid, all of which must ultimately come out of the 
pockets of consumers. 

Business firms with immense capital adopt another 
method of neutralizing competition. They give 

Wholesale 

large credit. They induce their customers to and retail 
trade beyond their capital, and having once 
got them in their power, they compel them to take 
their goods at their own prices. This is the kind of 
relationship that exists between the wholesale mercantile 
firms in London and the shopkeepers in the provinces, 
between the millers and the bakers, and between the 
brewers and the publicans. These wholesale dealers 
have what they call their clients, people who are under 
monetary obligation to them. One or two of the great 
London brewers, for example, have nearly the whole of 
the metropolitan publicans in their power, each brewer 
having his own retail houses, which he furnishes and 
stocks with liquor. Competition on the part of the 
publican is, under such circumstances, out of the ques- 
tion. The publicans are simply employes of the brewers. 
They cannot purchase their liquors where they are best 



64 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

or cheapest, but must take them from the brewer who is 

their landlord and creditor, who accordingly charges 

very much what he likes for what he supplies them. 

The small manufacturers, who are endeavouring to 

carry on business with insufficient capital, are 

Small -^ _ . 

mamifac- subjected to the same kind of fleecing process as 

turers and 

wholesale the retail dealers. In times of depression they 
have to depend on the wholesale houses with 
which they deal for assistance to meet their financial 
engagements. " One who has thus committed himself," 
says- Mr. Herbert Spencer, "has either to sell his 
accumulated stock at a sacrifice — 30 or 40 per cent, 
below its value — or else mortgage it ; and when the 
wholesale house becomes the mortgagee, the manufac- 
turer has little chance of escape. He is obliged to work 
at the wholesale dealer's terms ; and ruin almost imme- 
diately follows. As was said to us," he adds, ''by one 
of the larger silk hosiers, who had watched the destruc- 
tion of many of his smaller brethren, 'they may be 
spared for a time, as a cat spares a mouse, but they 
are sure to be eaten up in the end.' "-^ Observation of the 
course pursued in these and similar cases seems to have 
had some effect on Mill, who by no means goes so far as 
his followers in praise of competition. Indeed, he is 
careful to specially caution his readers about attaching 
too much importance to this principle. After pointing 
out that the division of produce is the result of two 
determining agencies, competition and custom, he says : 

* Essays, Bcientijic, Political, and Speculative, vol. ii. pp. 114, 115. 



ON COMPETITION. 65 

''Political economists generally, and English political 
economists above others, have been accustomed to lay 
almost exclusive stress upon the first of these agencies, 
(namely, competition) ; to exaggerate the effects of com- 
petition, and to take little account of the other and 
conflicting principle. ... But it vfould a great miscon- 
ception of the actual course of affairs, to suppose that 
competition exercises in fact this unlimited sway."-"- 
And in his evidence before a select committee of the 
House of Commons, he makes the admission, that con- 
sumers would probably be benefited if nine-tenths of the 
whole of the retail dealers of the country were altogether 
dispensed with.^ 

Nothing in the shape of competition could be fairer, 
one would imagine, than open sale by auction, g^ig ^^j 
But even here capital carries everything before ^^° ^°^' 
it. The hond-fide purchaser, the man who wants an 
article for use, and who is willing to give a fair price for 
it, can seldom obtain it without first paying black-mail 
to the speculative capitalist who intrudes himself between 
the intending buyer and the seller. So badly has the 
auction system worked in the Australian colonies that, 
one by one, they have abandoned it in the disposal of 
their public lands. There could be no possibility of 



^ Principles, vol. i. book ii. ch. iv. 1. 

2 June 6tli, 1850. His words are : — " If the business of distribution, 
wbich now employs, taking the different classes of dealers and their 
families, perhaps more than a milhon of inhabitants of this country, 
could be done by a hundred thousand people, I think the nine hundred 
and ninety nine thousand might be dispensed with." 

F 



66 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

fraud or favour in open competition, it was argued, and 
it was the best mode of securing the highest price for the 
pubhc estate. And it did certainly seem plausible enough 
to infer that the man who would give the highest price for 
a thing would turn it to the best account. The result 
proved very different, however. The speculative capi- 
talist did not turn the land to the best account, or to any 
account at all, for he simply held it till he found a 
purchaser at a price in advance of what he had paid for 
it ; and the intending seller, or the man who would have 
turned it to the best account, could only obtain what he 
wanted by paying the capitalist to retire from the 
contest, or by repurchasing it from him after the sale 
at an advanced price. All that the capitalist had to 
do in order to bring about this result, was to occa- 
sionally, and by way of example, run up a lot to such 
a figure as to show the poor man that a successful 
contest with a rich man was absolutely hopeless. 

As a result of this experience, nearly all the Australian 
■^Q^ colonies have, as I have said, abandoned the 

Wai*^^ system of sale by auction, and now dispose 
land sales, of the public estate by free selection at a fixed 
price, and by what is called deferred payments, that is, 
payments to be extended over a lengthened period. In 
New South Wales, however, both systems are in full 
operation, and large quantities of land are still disposed 
of by auction in that colony, but with results that cannot 
be considered satisfactory from a public point of view. 
Sale by auction, in fact, has degenerated into an organized 



ON COMPETITION. 67 

system of fraud. Owing to the high price of wool of late 

years, the squatters or sheep-farmers in that colony, who 

graze their immense flocks on public lands at a merely 

nominal charge, have become wealthy, and many of 

them have, by this system of sale, been able to purchase 

the fee simple of large portions of their holdings at the 

upset price of 20s. an acre. And they managed it in this 

way. They formed themselves into a society called " The 

Eiverine Defence Association," which has large funds at 

its disposal, for the sole purpose of recouping the occupier 

of any holding, who is a member of the Association, any 

sum he might have to pay for the land over and above 

the upset price, the understanding being that, in case of 

competition, the price should be run up to any amount 

rather than allow any intruder to obtain the smallest 

portion of it. The result of this combination has been 

what was anticipated, for, after two or three attempts at 

competition on the part of the public, the organization 

can now rely on getting every acre of land at the upset 

price. 

That the tendency of competition is towards monopoly 

is as true of nations as it is of individuals or ^^ ^. 

corporations. Some countries impose prohibi- competi- 
tion, 
tive customs duties on imports, for the avowed 

purpose of excluding outside competition and securing 

for their own manufacturers the whole of the home trade. 

Some even go so far as to offer bounties on exports, for the 

purpose of securing the foreign as well as the home trade, 

as France, for instance, has done in the matter of beet 



6S INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

sugar. Even England, notwithstanding her free-trade 
prochvities, indirectly does all that she can to prevent 
any real competition with her on the part of other 
countries, and to this end her immense resources are 
used with crushing effect. At present she practically 
enjoys a monopoly of many lucrative branches of manu- 
facture. With her natural advantages in coal and iron, 
with her acquired advantages of being the first in the field, 
and of having a numerous body of well-trained artisans, 
and, above all, of the immense capital at her disposal, 
she would be able to maintain her manufacturing supre- 
macy as long as the rate of wages is not materially in- 
creased. Her only danger lies in this direction. " Dear 
labour," says Mr. Brassey, " is the greatest obstacle to the 
extension of British trade." ^ Hence the extreme solicitude 
displayed by the trading classes of England at the present 
day on the question of wages ; hence also the growing 
antagonism which has sprung up of late years between 
them and the wages-earning class. The manner in 
which English capital is used to maintain England's 
manufacturing supremacy is well understood abroad. In 
any quarter of the globe where a competitor shows himself 
who is likely to interfere with her monopoly, immediately 
the capital of her manufacturers is massed in that par- 
ticular quarter, and goods are exported in large quantities, 
and sold at such prices, that outside competition is 
effectually crushed out. English manufacturers have 
been known to export goods to a distant market, and sell 

^ Work and Wages, p. 142. 



ON COMPETITION. • 69 

them under cost price for years, with a view to getting 
the market into their own hands again. The modus 
operandi is incidentally explained with much naivete in a 
report published some years ago by order of the House of 
Commons. " The labouring classes generally," writes 
Mr. Tremenheere, ^'in the manufacturing districts of this 
country, and especially in the iron and coal districts, are 
very little aware of the extent to which they are often 
indebted for their being employed at all to the immense 
losses which their employers voluntarily incur in bad 
times, in order to destroy foreign competition, and to. 
gain and keep possession of foreign markets. Authentic 
instances are well known of employers having in such 
times carried on their works at a loss, amounting in the 
aggregate to three or four hundred thousand pounds in the 
course of three or four years. If the efforts of those who 
encourage the combinations to restrict the amount of 
labour, and to produce strikes, were to be successful for 
any length of time, the great accumulations of capital 
could not then be made, which enable a few of the most 
wealthy capitalists to overwhelm all foreign competition 
in times of great depression, and thus to clear the way 
for the whole trade to step in when prices revive, and to 
carry on a great business before foreign capital can again 
accumulate to such an extent as to be able to establish a 
competition in prices with any chance of success. The 
large capitals of this country are the great instruments 
of warfare (if the expression may be allowed) against the 
competing capital of foreign countries, and are the most 



70 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

essential instruments now remaining, by which our 
manufacturing supremacy can be maintained." ^ That, 
I have no doubt, is a very fair, as it is certainly a 
very candid, statement, of the manner in which English 
capital is used to crush out foreign competition. 

England's commercial policy is, and always has been, 
the extension of this manufacturing monopoly. It was 
once proposed in the House of Commons that every 
Eno-iand American horse should be sent to England to 
and her ^^ shod. The Spirit that actuated the proposer 

dependen- ® •*• jr x 

cies. of this scheme still animates the mother-country 

in all her dealings with her dependencies. Nothing 
will satisfy her but a monopoly of the most valuable 
portion of their trade. Mr. Froude has told us how 
England governed Ireland in her own interests ; how 
she destroyed the Irish woollen manufactures, the export 
of farm produce and salted provisions, and for a time 
repressed and curtailed the Irish linen trade. We know 
how she lost her American colonies, and it is very 
certain she would have lost several more of her depen- 
dencies had she not permitted them the management 
of their own affairs. 

It may be thought that all this is now changed, and 

that England has long since given up coercing 

cotton lier dependencies for her own commercial ad- 

dnties. 

vantage. This is quite a mistake. We have 
only to look at what took place in India the other day 

^ Report of the Covirfhission appointed to examine into the State of the 
JPopulation of the Mining Districts, 1854, quoted by Carey, Social Science, 
vol. i. cli. XTii. 4. 



ON COMPETITION. 71 

with regard to the cotton duties, to be made aware of the 
magnitude of such an error. For many years past the 
Indian tariff imposed a duty of from 3 to 5 per cent, on 
all cotton goods imported into that country, but raw 
cotton was admitted duty free. It is to Mr. James Wilson, 
the great anti-corn-law writer, that India is indebted for 
this duty, who, curiously enough, after doing his best to 
induce England to abandon customs duties at home, 
was the first to recommend their adoption abroad. 
And the tariff which he introduced worked exceed- 
ingly well. The duty on manufactured cottons, in par- 
ticular, answered every requirement of a tax. It was 
universal and equitable in its incidence, as all classes, 
rich and poor alike, used the commodity taxed ; and as it 
was an ad valorem duty, it fell on each person according 
to his wealth. As a tax it was inappreciable ; it was not 
obnoxious in its mode of collection; and, above all, it 
brought in a large revenue. But in the course of time, 
when the natives had become dissatisfied with the quahty 
of the calicoes which Lancashire supplied them, this 
duty, which was imposed for revenue purposes only, 
acted incidentally as a protection to the local mills 
which have recently been established there and whose 
products now come into competition with the British 
exports. Not a word was uttered against this duty so 
long as Lancashire continued to enjoy a monopoly of 
the Indian market ; but no sooner was this threatened 
than Lancashire all at once became concerned about 
the poor ryot. He was paying too much for his calico. 



72 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

forsooth. If that 5 per cent, import duty were taken 
off, the Lancashire mill-owners solemnly assured the 
Secretary for India that the poor ryot should get the 
fuU benefit of it. This iniquitous impost was crushing 
the yery life out of him. One deputation expressed 
themselves as greatly concerned about the land revenue 
of India, lest it should be diminished in consequence of 
so many of the natives devoting themselves to agri- 
culture. There was nothing for it, Lancashire said, 
but the abandonment of the cotton duty. And the 
Secretary for India quite acquiesced. It was a most 
impolitic duty, he said, and he promised that it should 
be taken off as soon as possible ; but unfortunately it was 
not possible to do so just at present, as it brought in 
something like a million sterling a year to the treasury. 
Anything, however, that the government could do short 
of this, should be done to encourage England's most 
important industry. 

The Secretary for India was as good as his word. 
True, he did not take off the tax on manufactured cottons, 
but he did the next best thing for Manchester — he im- 
posed a tax on the Indian mill-owners. When the new 
Indian tariff of 1875 appeared, it was found that the 
duties on manufactured cottons were only slightly re- 
duced, but that a new and altogether unlooked-for tax of 
5 per cent, was imposed on raw cotton imported into 
India. Every one asked what could be the meaning of 
this new tax, seeing the public, so far as they had been 
taken into the confidence of the government, had been 



• ON COMPETITION. 73 

asked to consider only what duties it would be advisable 
to remove. The explanation was not far to seek. It 
appears that the local mill-owners could not compete 
with England, even in the Indian market, unless they 
used along with the short-stapled native, a long-stapled 
imported, cotton. A tax of 5 per cent, on the long- 
stapled imported cotton would, therefore, effectually 
handicap the local manufacturers, and to that extent 
would act as a protection to the Lancashire mill-owners. 
The most extraordinary part of the matter was the 
secrecy and bad faith of the Indian government 
throughout the whole affair. A pretence was made of 
consulting the mercantile classes in India with regard 
to the alterations proposed, and the opinions of the 
Chambers of Commerce, both at Calcutta and Bombay, 
were asked and given; but from first to last, the idea 
of imposing a tax on raw cotton, or any new tax 
whatever, was never mooted by the government, and 
never dreamed of by any section of the community 
in India. The question of the abolition of the duty on 
manufactured cottons was fully discussed, and public 
opinion was pretty equally divided on the subject. 
The people of India were therefore quite as much 
surprised at this new impost as were the local manu- 
facturers ; but when its true meaning was understood, 
surprise was turned into indignation, and the journals 
that had heretofore been its staunchest supporters be- 
came the bitterest in their condemnation of the course 
adopted by the government. It was felt on all hands 



74 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

that the conduct of the government in this matter was 
perfectly indefensible, and that nothing but the most 
abject subseryiency to Manchester could have dictated 
such a policy. It was openly stated that this duty was 
imposed solely with a view to injure the Indian manu- 
facturers, and preserve for Manchester a continuance of 
the monopoly; it was characterised as a wicked device 
of an alien, despotic, or ignorant government, and the 
Bombay Chamber of Commerce, and other public bodies 
in India, publicly protested against it as an unjust and 
impolitic restriction on the manufactures of India, and 
contrary to that sound principle of the commercial policy 
of England, and of other enlightened nations, which 
requires the state to give every encouragement to the 
free importation of the raw materials necessary for 
the development and extension of native manufactures.-^ 



^ The Calcutta Englishman of August 5tli, 1875, said : — " If the 
details given in the telegram which we publish this morning are correct, 
the new Tariff Bill is about as infamous a measure as ever a sub- 
servient Legislature sought to impose upon a voiceless people. An import 
duty on raw material is, under any circumstances, one of the worst 
modes of raising the revenue that can be devised. But the duty which 
the government is about to impose on a particular quality of raw 
cotton, imported into this country, is nicely calculated to produce the 
greatest amount of injury that could possibly be inflicted by such an 
impost. The present Viceroy is too acute an economist not to know 
what the effect of such a measure must be ; and it is impossible to resist 
the conviction that it is for the sake of the injury it will inflict on India, 
that the measure is proposed. The Manchester men have been sharp 
enough to foresee that they would lose more than they gained by a 
reduction of the duty on coarse goods, unless measures were at the same 
time taken to prevent the Indian mills from shifting their competition to 
the finer classes. The Government of India, too, no doubt foresaw that 



ON COMPETITION. 75 

The absence of all moral principle on the part of a 
competitor is the second condition of success, r^j^g 
If the chief, or, as the deductionists main- ^^^^^J^^q^ 
tain, the sole end of competition is the oh- of success. 



if they went on abolisliing tlie import duty on one class of cotton goods 
after another, this item of revenue must gradually be extinguished. 
They have therefore hit upon a device as effectual as it is wicked — we 
can apply no milder term to it ; — a device which will at once increase 
their revenue and protect the Manchester manufacturer. They have put 
a prohibitive duty on the raw material necessary to enable the Indian 
mills to spin the finer counts of yarn and weave the finer makes of cloths, 
and thus secure to Manchester a continuance of her present monopoly of 
these classes of goods. None but an alien government, or a despotic 
and ignorant government bent on filling its coffers for the nonce at any 
cost, would have adopted such a course as this. No free people would 
have thus drawn the knife across their own throats. In the shadow of 
this enormity, the proposition to recoup the revenue for the reduction 
of duties which fall on the community at large, by raising those which 
fall chiefly on a section of them already heavily taxed, appears so small 
as scarcely to justify complaint. As to the merits of the Bill, they 
are so completely eclipsed by its iniquity, that they cease to invite 
comment." 

The Bomlay Gazette, which, up to this time, had been a warm supporter 
of the government proposals, said, on the 10th of August : — " The only 
subject of regret connected with the new Tariff is, that the reasons which 
Lord Northbrook undoubtedly could give for putting a duty of 5 per cent. 
on long-stapled cotton are not generally known. That duty is a new 
feature in the Customs Tariff for which no one outside the Viceroy's 
Council was prepared, and is a very objectionable imposition, but we 
should probably be charging Lord Northbrook falsely if we imputed to 
his Lordship, as the Englishman does, a secret object of desiring to 
inflict an injury on India in this way. What the motives were which 
induced Lord Northbrook to make this extraordinary imposition we 
cannot, of course, say, but he must have perceived that it would be 
impossible for any importation of the long-stapled cotton to be made 
under a 5 per cent, duty by manufacturers in India, and that, therefore, 
they would be so heavily weighted that competition with Manchester 
would be useless j in other words, he would be assisting Manchester by 



76 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

tainment of the maximum of wealth with the minimum 
of expenditure, it is not likely that a competitor will 



protective duties, a policy she could never dare to adopt herself. Look 
at the matter whichever way we may, we can only account for this false 
move that Lord Northbrook has made by supposing him to have been 
under the influence of a specially evil genius in thus marring the other- 
wise excellent changes he has made in the Customs Tariff ; and we are 
glad to know that the Bombay Chamber of Commerce has already taken 
steps to protest publicly against the imposition of the new protective 
duty." 

The memorial of the Bombay Chamber of Commerce to the Viceroy, 
Lord Northbrook, is an able document, and puts the case on behalf of 
India with great force. It sets forth— 

" That such a duty is contrary to sound principle and good policy, 
being imposed in restraint of the manufactures of India, and injurious to 
the general interests of the country. 

" That it is wholly without precedent in the commercial history of 
any enlightened country, and has avowedly been adopted ' in order to 
place the Indian manufacturer upon the same footing as the importer of 
piece-goods and yarns.' 

" A duty imposed, in the interests of the English manufactures, for 
the purposes only of prohibiting the people of India from extending and 
improving their own manufactures, is a measure which, in the existing 
state of the native industry, is, your Memorialists respectfully submit, 
unjust and oppressive, and can only result in permanent injury to the 
country, 

" That it brings little or no additional revenue to the State, nor, with 
the slow progress of Indian manufacture, is there any likelihood of its 
doing so for many years. 

" That the Government of India has again and again promulgated 
that the duties on imported piece-goods and yarns are levied for revenue 
purposes only, and not for the protection of any industry. The policy 
which the English Government, under similar circumstances, adopted, 
was to replace the sacrifice of the revenue, when Customs duties were 
abolished in the interest of the consumer by the imposition of direct 
taxes. 

" That there is nothing in the recent coramercial system of England, 
which, either by precedent or analogy, can be held to warrant the 
imposition of such a duty. Excise duties on manufactures are an 



ON COMrETITION. 77 

be excessively scrupulous as to the means he employs to 
attain it. As a rule, indeed, the trading classes have 



exploded doctrine equally with protection. While the free-trade policy 
of England, on the other hand, by removing all restrictions, gave every 
encouragement to manufactures, it conferred also great benefits on the 
country, by giving the people cheaper clothing. But the effect of this 
duty is to restrain the manufactures, and at the same time, to injure the 
general interests of the people of India. For, assuming that India could 
compete successfully with Lancashire in the making of the finer qualities 
of cloth and yarn, the duty will, by restricting the enterprise and 
energies of its manufactures, deprive the Indian consumer of the benefit 
of such competition. Now, the object of all free-trade legislation is the 
interest of the consumer, and for this object the English Legislature has 
sanctioned the repeal of protective duties. The repeal of import duties, 
more especially on articles of such universal use as clothing, confers also 
like benefits on the consumer ; but this requires a healthy competition, 
which, except among the English manufacturers themselves, does not 
exist in India in the case of the cotton manufactures now imported, for 
in these neither India nor any other country has yet been able to com- 
pete. But such a measure as a duty levied on the raw material entering 
into a manufacture, not with the object of raising revenue, but avowedly 
to favour a foreign industry, already in the enjoyment of a monopoly, is 
an anomaly which in England no statesman has ever ventured to bring 
forward, and which may be productive in this country of the most 
mischievous consequences. 

" That a duty on raw material imported for the purposes of manu- 
facture is opposed to that sound principle of the commercial policy of 
England and other enlightened nations, which requires the State to give 
every encouragement to the development and extension of native manu- 
factures. 

" That great as are the social and economic benefits which have 
resulted from the liberal policy of the more enlightened nations of the 
West, the advantage which India would reap from an extension of its 
manufactures can hardly be over-estimated. Its entire population is, it 
is needless to remind your Excellency, dependent on agriculture for its 
subsistence, and the Government of Bombay has expressed its opinion 
that no cause has retarded the material progress of most districts of this 
Presidency so much as the want of a demand for agricultural produce 
and of an outlet for labour, which the establishment of manufactares is 
calculated to supply." 



78 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

been apt learners in the school of the deductionists, more 
especially in England, where the doctrines of this sect 
have almost taken the form of a national faith. English 
manufactured goods at one time had a high reputation 
all over the world. The fact that they, were Enghsh 
was quite guarantee enough that they were well made 
and of proper materials. And the reputation in which 
they were held was, on the whole, well deserved. English 
manufactures were, at the period I refer to, really what 
they were represented to be ; they were made for use, and 
not for sale merely, as English goods are at the present 
day. The English workman was taught to do his work 
honestly and well, and to take a pride in it ; the English 
manufacturer staked his reputation on the quality of the 
goods which bore his name. This practical honesty, 
more than anything else, was the cause of England's 
pre-eminence in manufacturing industry. At the time 
when her commercial reputation stood highest, the 
English people showed no toleration of adulteration or 
fraud in any shape. Fraudulent production of every 
kind was put down by the strong arm of the law, and the 
law in this case was but the expression of public opinion. 
Trade in those days was not considered so much a 
matter of individual profit as of national honour and 
prosperity. In the early Acts for the suppression of 
fraudulent practices in manufacturing of goods (and the 
adulterations were mild then, compared with what they 
are now), adulterators were stigmatized as "covetous," 
as men who ''practised falsehood," who had more 



ON COMPETITION. 79 

regard for their own private gains than "the advance- 
ment of truth," and their practices generally were 
characterised as "the shame of the land."^ The fraudu- 
lent manufacturer of those days could not hold up his 
head in decent society, become an office-bearer in his 
church, take the chair at social and religious gatherings, 
or send a member of his firm to represent his borough 
in parliament. He was regarded as a social outlaw and 
was punished as such. 

All this is now changed. The rugged honesty of 
the English workman and manufacturer is a 
thing of the past. The old laws against trade 
adulteration have been abolished, and almost ^^^° ^^^^* 
the only interference with adulteration on the part of 
the government of the present day has for its object 



^ Take, for instance, the following preamble to 5 and 6 Edward YI. 
c. 6., entitled " An Act for tlie making of Woollen Cloth." " "Where here- 
tofore divers and many goodly Statutes have been made for the true 
making of cloth within this realm, which nevertheless, forasmuch as 
clothiers, some for lack of knowledge and experience, and some of 
extreme covetousness, do daily more and more study rather to make 
many than to make good cloths, having more respect to their private 
convenience and gain than the advancement of truth and the continuance 
of the commodity in estimation of the worthness thereof, have and do 
daUy instead of truth, practice falsehood, and instead of substantial 
making of cloth, do practice slight and slender making ... to the great 
slander of the King our Sovereign lord and the shame of the land, and 
to the utter destruction of so great and notable a commodity as the like 
is not in any foreign nation ; our Sovereign lord and Eang, therefore 
minding to advance all truth and abandon falsehood, and also to provide 
for the continuance of the said commodity of cloth making to his honour 
and the common profit of the realm, hath, by the advice," etc. See also 
3 Hen. VIII. c. 6; 23 Hen. VIII. c. 17 ; 1 Eliz. c. 12. 



80 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

the protection of the revenue. The manufacturers of 
tobacco and the importers of tea, for example, are 
subject to heavy penalties if they have on their pre- 
mises any ingredients which might be used for the 
purposes of adulteration ; but this is because these goods 
pay duty at the custom house, and any ingredient 
which might be mixed with or substituted for them 
would, jjro tanto, be a loss to the revenue. Beer, also, 
is protected from adulteration, because all the materials 
of which it is composed, with the exception of hops, 
are liable to excise duty.-^ There has, it is true, been 
some legislation recently with regard to adulteration, 
but the vicious doctrines of the English economical 
school have taken such a firm hold on the public mind 
that the law has hitherto been practically inope- 
rative.^ Indeed, fraudulent, practices have become the 
rule and honest trading the exception in England at 
the present day. It may be safely affirmed that no 



^ UBtil very recently there was also a duty on hops, but this was 
repealed some time ago, as it was believed it had the effect of en- 
couraging the brewers to use cheaper and less wholesome substitutes. 
The effect, bowever, was the very opposite of what was expected. When 
the duty was repealed, it was no longer necessary for the protection of 
the revenue to see that hops were used in the manufacture of beer, and 
the brewers being thus left to themselves, adopted other and cheaper 
ingredients as substitutes, and the consumption of hops seriously declined 
in consequence. To such an extent was this the case, that a deputation 
representing the hop-growers of England, recently waited upon the 
Chancellor of the Exchequer, and urged him to reimpose the duty 
which had been taken off in their interest and at their solicitation. 

" The following paragraph indicates pretty correctly the state of opinion 
among the English trading classes on this question : — " At a meeting of 



ON COMPETITION. 81 

country in the world has such a bad reputation in this 
respect. It is pre-eminently the land of adulteration. 
Mr. Herbert Spencer is well known to be opposed to 
legislative interference with trade in any shape, and 
his testimony as to the extent to which such prac- 
tices are now carried in England may be taken as 
thoroughly impartial. "On all sides," he says, '^we 
have found the result of long personal experience to 
be the conviction that trade is essentially corrupt. In 
tones of disgust or discouragement, reprehension or 
derision, according to their several natures, men in 
business have one after another expressed or implied 
this belief. Omitting the highest mercantile classes, a 
few of the less common trades, and those exceptional 
cases where an entire command of the market has been 



grocers, provision-dealers, and publicans, wMcli assembled the other day 
at Wolverliampton, in response to a letter from the secretary of the 
* National Chamber of Trade,' to put pressure on Mr. Villiers, one of the 
members for that town, who had the audacity a short time ago, in 
the House of Commons, to express the opinion that adulteration was 
' still rampant,' it is noteworthy that the chairman at the meeting 
strongly objected to the appointment of analysts under the bill being 
vested in the county magistrates, although, while insisting on its beiug 
left with the local authorities, he also advocated the establishment of a 
court of appeal from the decisions of the local Solons. His notions of 
what constitutes free-trade, presumably also those of other persons 
present, appear likewise to be very peculiar. *Mr. Yilliers,' he said, 
' was an old free-trader, and he could not imagine what that gentleman 
was thinking about, unless he was going against the opioions of a large 
number of his constituents. As a free-trader, he was bound to give 
freedom to every tradesman, and the course he proposed would be very 
hard to all tradesmen who were affected by the Food and Drugs Adulter- 
ation BiU."'— Irow, July 15th, 1875. 

G 



82 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

obtained, tlie uniform testimony of competent judges 
is, that success is incompatible with strict integrity. 
To live in the commercial world it appears necessary 
to adopt its ethical code ; neither exceeding nor falling 
short of it ; neither being less honest nor more honest. 
Those who sink below its standard are expelled, while 
those who rise above it are pulled down to it or ruined. 
As, in self-defence, the civilized man becomes savage 
among savages, so it seems that, in self-defence, the 
scrupulous trader is obliged to become as little scru- 
pulous as his competitors. It has been said that the 
law of the animal creation is, *Eat to be eaten; ' and 
of our trading community it may similarly be said its 
law is, ' Cheat and be cheated.' A system of keen com- 
petition, carried on, as it is, without moral restraint, is 
very much a system of commercial cannibalism." And 
further on he adds : "On all sides we have met with 
the same conviction, that for those engaged in the 
ordinary trades there are but two courses — either to 
adopt the practices of their competitors or to give up 
business. Men in different occupations and in different 
places ; men naturally conscientious, who manifestly 
chafe under the degradations they submitted to, have 
one and all expressed to us the sad belief that it is 
impossible to carry on trade with strict rectitude. 
Their concurrent opinion, independently given by each, 
is that the scrupulously honest man must go to the 
wall."^ 

* Essays, vol. ii. p. 134. 



ON COMPETITION. 83 

Such is Mr. Herbert Spencer's testimony to the extent 
of the corruption that exists in commercial circles at 
the present day. And we have no reason to believe that 
his views are exaggerated. Fraud in one or other of its 
thousand shapes meets us at every turn in every hour of 
the day. Everything we buy is different from what it is 
represented to be, and everything we eat, drink, or wear 
is adulterated more or less, so that we seem actually 
to be living in an atmosphere of fraud. 

The worst of it is, that while everybody knows of 
such practices, nobody seems to be ashamed of ^^^ 
them. They are not only tolerated, but in some openly 

•^ -^ ' tolerated 

quarters they are actually defended. For years and de- 

fended. 

past the Lancashire mill-owners have been 
making a kind of calico for the Indian and China markets 
the material of which consists of about two -thirds cotton 
and one-third flour sizing and china clay.^ In the East 
this kind of cloth goes under the name of mildewed 
cotton, owing to the fact that goods so manufactured 
generally arrived at their destination in a mildewed 
condition. On this account the merchants to whom 
these goods are consigned have long and loudly protested 
against this system of adulteration. But they also ob- 
jected on another account. It appears that the natives of 

^ At a meeting of the representatives of the various Operatives' 
Associations of Lancashire, Cheshire, and Derbyshire, held at Blackburn, 
on the 25th July last, it was stated, and I have yet seen no contra- 
diction of the statement on the part of the manufacturers, that calicoes 
were now adulterated to the extent of from 80 to 90 per cent. — See 
Manchester Examiner and Times, July 26th, 1876. 



84 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

those countries object to buy paste and china clay at the 

price of good cloth, and that the exports of Lancashire 

calicoes are likely to be seriously diminished if this system 

is not put an end to. The Chambers of Commerce at 

^^^ Shanghai and other places have accordingly re- 

chester monstratcd strongly with the Manchester Cham- 
Chamber ° •^ 

of Com- ber of Commerce on the matter (an appeal 

merce. 

to the government being out of the question m 
these days), and the subject came formally before the 
latter body last year, ^ when, after a full discussion, the 
Chamber came to the conclusion that any interference 
with the present practices was not desirable. 

Still more recently the Bombay Chamber of Com- 
™ merce refused to sanction the putting down of 

Bombay adulteration. The dissatisfaction of the natives 

Chamber 

of Com- of India with the adulterated calicoes of Lanca- 

merce. 

shire has helped, along with other causes, to 
re-establish the manufacture of cotton in India, and a 
considerable number of mills have recently been erected 
in the neighbourhood of Bombay and on the banks of the 
Hooghly, near Calcutta.^ As several of the Bombay 
mill-owners had begun to imitate the ways of Man- 
chester in over-sizing their calico, and to prevent, if 
possible, the ruin t-hat would be certain to result from the 
general adoption of the system, Mr. Ashburner, the 



1 1875. 

^ The Times of India says : " The local mill industry owes its success 
mainly to the disatisfaction of the purchasers of Manchester goods with 
the dishonest system of mixing with the cotton some 30 per cent, of 
China clay." 



ON COMPETITION. 85 

Eevenue Commissioner for the Northern Division of the 
Bomhay Presidency, urged, in a letter to the govern- 
ment, that an Act for the prevention of frauds in the 
preparation of cloth in the Bombay mills should be 
passed, as it was probable that if once the mill-owners 
became accustomed to derive large profits from adul- 
teration it would be extremely difficult to stop the 
practice afterwards. The question was referred to the 
Bombay Chamber of Commerce, a body which is chiefly 
composed of English merchants and the agents of 
English firms, and in a lengthy document they en- 
deavoured to show that any interference of the legislature 
with " the course of trade " was unnecessary and 
pernicious. ^ ' . 

I may be told that these evils will right themselves 
in time ; that the frauds will be discovered, and How sucii 
that people will then refuse to have any dealings them"^ 
with those who perpetrate them. But human selves. 
ingenuity is not easily exhausted. No sooner is one 
kind of fraud discovered and put down than another 

^ Mr. Ashbumer replied to the objections of tbe Bombay Chamber of 
Commerce, in a letter to the Government, in which he says : — ■ " I was 
fully prepared for the opposition of the Chamber of Commerce. The 
Chamber is composed of gentlemen whose interest in this country is 
limited to a few years' residence ; their business is to buy and sell ; and 
any interference with their operations, however necessary for the welfare 
of the country, is, of course, highly prejudicial to their interests. A bale 
of adulterated cloth is as much an article of trade as one that is honestly 
prepared. There is a large demand for such cloth ; their business is to 
supply the demand; and they naturally object to the interference of 
Government, and quote Mill and the ' Economists ' to prove that any 
interference of the Legislature with trade is unnecessary and per- 
nicious." 



86 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

immediately crops up in its place, so that the prospect of 
things righting themselves in this way is distant enough, 
and meanwhile the public suffer. But how do such evils 
right themselves ? Only by the ruin of the trade of the 
country which tolerates them. The mill-owners of 
Lancashire are doing their best to ruin their own trade, 
as the flourishing condition of the numerous cotton mills 
in India at the present moment testify. ^ 

The speechmakers of the Cobden Club declaim loudly 
One cause ^nough against high customs tariffs, but they 
of tigii ought to know that the dishonesty of English 
tariffs. manufacturers has a good deal to do with 
some of these tariffs at all events. It is well known that 



^ Not only has her India and China trade already been seriously 
in]'tired, as is proved by the decrease in the exports, but even her 
home trade is threatened. The Warehousemen and Drapers^ Journal 
for October, 1875, announced that it had just received the starthng 
intelligence that Manchester is importing calicoes and long-cloths of 
American manufacture, and adds : — " For some time past it has been 
known that American ladies travelling in Europe uniformly refuse to 
purchase cotton goods made on this side of the Atlantic, and send to 
their own country for supplies. Messrs. Wanklyn, O'Hanlon and Co., of 
Manchester, thought it important to inquire the reason ; they found the 
American fabrics much better in quality and appearance than the Euro- 
pean manufacture, and the jBrst shipment that has ever been made in the 
ordinary course of business to this country has just reached them. Is 
protectionist America really to distance free-trade England in an industry 
so peculiarly her own, and in which she has hitherto considered herself 
beyond rivalry ? If the warning needs to be intensified, we can add 
?inother fact scarcely less significant — that one of the largest houses 
in the city has been for some time past importing calicoes from 
Belgium," Since the above was written American calicoes have been 
extensively introduced into England and Australia, where they command 
a ready sale, being found to be both better and cheaper than the 
EngUsh-made article. 



ON COMPETITION. 87 

the United States had at one time a large and profit- 
able trade with the West Indian colonies and the South 
American States.^ She supplied these countries with 
numerous manufactures of her own, and especially 
with a kind of cotton fabric suited to the climate. A 
cheap imitation of this cloth was made in Lancashire, 
and exported in such quantities to these countries, that 
the sound American article was completely driven out of 
the market. In the East, the United States had also a 
large export trade, but she was cut out by the same 
dishonest practices. Need we wonder that, finding their 
foreign trade gone, the Americans began to think it time 
to secure their home trade by the imposition of high 
customs duties ? 

In adopting this course the United States did what 
a British colony has more recently been case of 
compelled to do under precisely similar cir- ^^^^ona. 
cumstances. A cloth factory was established in Victoria 
some years ago, and doing a fair business, the com- 
pany that owned it paying a dividend of about 10 per 
cent, on the amount of capital invested. A superior 
kind of tweed was made at this mill, which had a high 
reputation in the colony owing to its good wearing 
qualities. But an enterprising Yorkshire manufacturer 
procured a sample of the cloth, and made a shoddy 
imitation of it, shipped large quantities of this spurious 
manufacture to Melbourne, and passed it off for a time 

^ See The Report of the Select Committee of the House of Commons on 
Imports, 1840, questions 1672-1674, and 2000-2005. "^- ' 



88 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

as the genuine article, selling it, of course, at a much 
lower price, so that the locally made article, which was 
really the cheaper of the two, taking the quality into 
consideration, became a drug in the market. Up to this 
time there was no import duty on cloth, but in order to 
save a promising industry from ruin, and to put a stop 
to the importation of the fraudulent article, the local 
Legislature in 1871 imposed a duty of 10 per cent, on all 
cloth imported into the colony. The consequence of 
this step has been that, instead of there being only one 
cloth mill in Victoria, there are now a dozen of them, 
and new ones are going up all over the country. 

British manufacturers have become so accustomed 
Onaiit of ^^ i^^ike goods merely for sale, that they seem 
British almost to havo forgotten that they are wanted 

exports. ^ ^ 

for use. This is more especially the case when 
the goods are intended for export. Any rubbish which 
is quite unsaleable at home is considered quite good 
enough to send abroad. So long as it is off their hands 
and the money obtained for it, what is it to them if the 
article when it arrives at its destination proves to be 
utterly worthless for the purpose for which it was 
ordered ? Not the least annoying part of the matter is 
that, when goods come from a distance, the purchaser has 
often to pay, in the shape of freight, commission, in- 
surance, and other charges, what sometimes amounts to 
as much as the original price of the goods at the port of 
departure, so that the importer not only has a useless 
article thrown on his hands, but is at the same time 



ox C03IPETITI0X. 89 

saddled with heavy charges for its conveyance. Is it 
extraordinary that under such circumstances consumers 
sometimes prefer a locally made article to an imported 
one, which, even if nominally cheap in the first instance, 
is almost sure to be dearer in the end ; and that they are 
sometimes willing to submit to high customs duties in the 
hope of some day being able to establish honest manu- 
factures of their own ? Three cases of the kind alluded 
to were recently discovered in three different Austrahan 
colonies within a few days of each other. Machinery 
had been ordered from England by the government of 
Victoria for pumping out a large graving-dock which, on 
its arrival, was found to be contrary to specification, and 
quite unfit for the purpose for which it was ordered, and 
the necessary alterations, which had to be made in the 
colony at great cost and inconvenience, amounted to as 
much as the original cost of the whole. About the same 
time the government of New Zealand received from 
England a shipment of iron rails, being a portion of an 
order for 160 miles of railway, which, on examination, 
proved to have been made of cinder with only a coating 
of iron outside. Within the same week a first portion of 
another consignment of iron rails, for some hundreds of 
miles of railway, arrived in Sydney for the government 
of New South Wales, which, on beiag tested, turned 
out to be of a quahty similar to that sent to New 
Zealand. These materials, be it observed, were in each 
case made by "highly respectable" firms, and though 
every precaution had been taken by the respective 



90 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

governments to have them properly examined before 
shipment, the result was as I have stated. If govern- 
ments are served in this fashion, how are private in- 
dividuals likely to fare ? Some day or other England 
will wake up and find herself without a character and 
without an export trade. 

No doubt evils of this sort will right themselves in 
the end, but at what cost? If the loss fell exclu- 
sively on the dishonest trader it would not matter 
much, but unfortunately he is about the last one that 
feels it. It is the country which tolerates his exist- 
ence that usually suffers all the loss. And the evils, if 
allowed to work their own remedy, will only do so at 
the expense of the country's honour and the country's 
trade. When there are no longer any customers to 
(?heat, cheating will no doubt be abandoned as an 
unprofitable business, just as the thieves' occupation 
will be gone when there is nothing to steal. But why 
the fate of the thief should be so different from that 
of the dishonest trader, who flourishes on his gains in 
all the odour of respectability, is one of the mysteries 
which the economists have left unexplained. They both 
take what does not belong to them ; they both bring 
discredit on the country ; but, if anything, the dishonest 
trader is worse than the thief, for, in addition to all 
this, he helps to ruin the country which supports him. 

In the early history of the human race the maxim 
of the economists was in full force. It was then each 



ON COMPETITION. 91 

man for himself. There was no interchange of ideas 
between man and man, no reciprocity of senti- industrial 

A n XT 1 progress 

ments, no mutual dependence. All the eie- does not 
ments which composed society were in a ^^^^^^^^^ 
state of repulsion. To be a man was to be ^°°'^^* 
a competitor for the Hmited means of subsistence, and 
therefore an enemy. Socially, we have since changed 
all that. There are now recognized rights, and acknow- 
ledged obligations with respect to them, and modern 
society is the result. Can it be said that we have made 
as much progress industrially ? Is not the struggle 
for industrial existence as keen, as unscrupulous, and 
as deadly as ever it was ? Do not competitors regard 
each other as enemies, who are to be got rid of at all 
hazards and as soon as possible? Why, may I ask, 
should the static condition of the industrial world be 
one of warfare ? Why should the man of large capital 
be allowed to crush his weaker rival, or the honest 
trader be ruined by the rogue ? Why, in fact, should 
not industry be conducted on the principles of justice, 
instead of, as at present, by brute force and cunning ? 

I may be told that competition is a law of nature, 
and that the struggle for existence is as fierce and unre- 
lenting in the animal as it is in the economic world. 
This is undoubtedly true ; but there is this material 
difference between the two cases. Economists insist (I 
speak of the English school, of course), that competition 
is the proper thing under all circumstances and allow no 
exception to this rule. But nature is more just. Nature 



92 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

provides that those only shall compete who are fitted for 
the struggle. Parental instincts protect the young from 
the competition to which the parents readily expose 
themselves ; while among animals of the same species 
opposite sexes do not compete with each other. The 
struggle for existence is only for the strong, the full 
grown, and fully trained of the same sex. But it is not 
so in the economic world. There it is the stronger 
against the weaker sex, the full-grown man against the 
infant; and when a man is down it is considered the 
proper thing to kick him and jump upon him. 

But I shall probably be told that Political 
Political Economy has nothing to do with Morals. I 
Economy ^^^ aware that Political Economy is usually 

and '^ "^ 

Morals. considered as belonging to an entirely different 
department of scientific investigation, and that when an 
action comes to be regarded in its moral aspect, it is 
supposed to pass out of the region of Economic Science 
into that of Ethics. But this position is altogether 
untenable. Wherever there are two individuals (and 
there always must be whenever an act of exchange 
takes place) there must necessarily be two separate 
and antagonistic interests to be adjusted. What is 
fraud but an exclusive regard by an individual to his 
own interest, or, what is the same thing, a disregard 
of the interests of others ? An act does not cease to 
be an industrial or economic act because it is an unjust 
or immoral one. It does not thereby pass out of the 
region of Political Economy into Ethics, but it belongs 



ON COMPETITION, 93 

equally to both departments at one and the same time. 
It is still the same act whether regarded in its economic 
or its moral aspect. We might as well say that when 
an immoral act is committed which renders the agent 
amenable to the criminal law, that the act thereby 
passes out of the moral sphere into that of the social 
or political. But the act still remains an immoral, 
while at the same time it is a criminal act, although it 
may now be called a misdemeanour or a felony, and be 
taken cognisance of by the civil authorities. 

Among the ancient writers the tendency had been to 
subordinate the individual to society, individual Econo- 

. , , , • 1 • 1 I XT J. mists subt 

interests to social interests. Human nature ordinate 
was judged of by the mass, and the individual j^^^J^^^^^ai 
was ignored. The deductionists have adopted ii^terests. 
the converse method, and subordinate society to the 
individual. But, as we have already pointed out, they 
have failed to take into account some important 
elements of man's nature. Having committed this 
error it was natural that they should commit another 
and ignore individual relationships altogether. And 
this is what they have actually done. They have pro- 
ceeded on the assumption that there is but one indi- 
vidual in the whole world, and that any act of his 
affects only himself, and has no relation to any body 
else. Under such circumstances there could, of course, 
be no relationship to adjust, and the moral element 
would thus be effectually got rid of. 

The moral element cannot be disposed of so easily, 



94 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

however, for it is inherent in every human action, and 
must necessarily be recognized in every relation of life. 
™ 1 It is the force that gives cohesion to the 

The moral ^ 

element gocial Organism, Without it there could be 

essential. 

no division of labour, no exchange of pro- 
ducts, no social intercourse. Society could have no 
existence if there were no rights and no correspond- 
ing duties. Even domestic life would be unbearable 
if the principles of justice were disregarded between 
husband and wife, and between parents and children. 
The moral element is even necessary in our pleasures. 
Our very pastimes require to be conducted on the prin- 
ciples of fair play. What, for example, would become 
of our national sport if jockeys were got at, if false 
weights or unjust scales were used, if horses were doc- 
tored, and their owners paid to lose the race ? Such 
practices are not altogether unknown on the turf at 
present, but what would be the result if, instead of being 
the exception, they became the rule, and were condoned 
and defended by the highest authorities in such matters ? 
How much more necessary, then, is the moral element 
in our industrial relations when every contract between 
buyer and seller, between producer and consumer, 
between debtor and creditor, and between master and 
servant, is based on the truthfulness and fidelity of each 
of the contracting parties ? 



PAET II. 

PKINCIPLES. 



( 97 ) 



CHAPTEE VI. 



INDUSTEIAL FORCES, 



In his Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith assumes as the 
cause of industrial phenomena "the desire of Adam 
every man to better his condition." This desire premisses 
he describes as "constant, uniform, and uni- ^^^f^j^^f 
versal," which "comes to us from the womb, and Nations. 
never leaves us till we go into the grave," and this, and 
this alone, he maintains, is sufficient to carry society to 
wealth , and prosperity. Throughout his work he keeps 
this motive constantly in view, and from it, as cause, 
he traces all the phenomena of industrial life. He no- 
where states that man, in the pursuit of wealth, is 
not influenced by other motives, but this is implied 
throughout. 

In his Moral Sentiments, on the other hand, where 
he had phenomena of a totally different kind And 
to explam, Adam Smith has recourse to Moral Sen. 
totally different premisses. Man is no longer **^^^^**- 
selfish but sympathetic ; and sympathy he describes 
as something essentially different from selfishness. 
"Sympathy," he remarks, "cannot in any sense be 

H 



98 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

regarded as a selfish principle." ^ " The desire to better 
one's condition " henceforth takes a subordinate place in 
his system. There is another principle which sjiould 
determine every act, and this is the principle of justice. 
" There is one virtue," he says, " which the general rules 
determine, with the greatest exactness, every external 
action which it requires. This virtue is justice. The 
rules of justice are accurate in the highest degree, and 
admit of no exceptions or modifications but such as may 
be ascertained as accurately as the rules themselves, 
and which generally, indeed, flow from the very same 
principles with them. If I owe a man ten pounds, 
justice requires that I should pay him precisely ten 
pounds, either at the time agreed on, or when he 
demands it. What I ought to perform, how much I 
ought to perform, when and where I ought to perform it, 
the whole nature and circumstances of the action 
prescribed, are all of them precisely fixed and de- 
termined." ^ He even goes so far as to trace the desire 
of wealth to the sympathetic affections, as, he says, " it 
is chiefly for this regard to the sentiments of mankind 
that we pursue riches and avoid poverty," and, again, 
*' to become the natural object of the joyous congratula- 
tions and sympathetic attentions of mankind, are the 
circumstances which give to prosperity all its dazzling 



* Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 206. Bolnn's Edition. Compare vol. i. p. 9, 
where he combats the views of those " who are fond of deducing all our 
sentiments from certain refinements of self-love." 

* Moral Sentiments, vol. ii. pp. 249, 250. 



INDUSTRIAL FORCES. 99 

splendour." ^ There is no possibility of reconciling these 
two sets of premisses. Man cannot at the same time 
be wholly selfish and wholly sympathetic. If wholly 
selfish, then he cannot be sympathetic, and if wholly 
sympathetic, he cannot be selfish. It is true he may be 
both selfish and sympathetic, and this is in effect what 
Adam Smith proves by a roundabout process. But 
both statements are wrong as he puts them, and the de- 
ductions which he draws from them cannot be otherwise 
than misleading. 

Adam Smith's method of a century ago is the method 
of the deductionists of to-day. They not only ^.^ 

-J '/ -J Difference 

treat the subject deductively as he did, but they between 

his pre- 

have adopted substantially the same premisses, misses and 
the phrase, " desire for wealth," being substi- the deduc- 
tuted for '' the desire to better one's condition." '°^^^ ^" 
Viewed from the modern standpoint, man is still purely 
selfish. No account has been taken of that other 
class of motives which Adam Smith in his Moral Senti- 
ments included under the term Sympathy. No attempt 
has been made to reconcile the contradictions which are 
apparent in the premisses of his two great works. If 
any advantage, in a scientific point of view, could be 
gained by this process, it would be a different matter ; 
but no one pretends that there is. 

In Sociology we do not proceed by separating the 
Bocial from the anti-social or self -regarding forces. 

* Moral Sentiments, vol. i. p. 66. 



100 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

We do not attempt to establish the science on the basis 
The of the social forces alone. On the contrary, 

Social^ ^'^ we recognize both as essential to the main- 
Science, tenance of social order and progress. In 
Social Science we view the two kinds of forces from the 
standpoint of society, and we subordinate the interests 
of the individual to those of the community if .the well- 
being of the latter requires it. "Where the two interests 
clash, the lesser must give way to the greater, the indi- 
vidual to society. When, on the other hand, there is 
no clashing, the two may work side by side ; as, for 
instance, a man may follow any pursuit he likes so long 
as he does no injury to his neighbour. 

It is the same with Ethics. The moralist does not 

ignore either the self-regarding or the social 

methoia in tendencies of man's nature when he treats of the 

Ethics. 

Ethical Sentiment ; on the contrary, he fully 
recognizes both. The moralist, however, takes a wider 
range of view than either the economist or sociologist. 
His standpoint is not that of the individual, or of 
society, but of humanity at large. He treats of human 
actions in the abstract, irrespective of individuals or 
nationalities. But so far from ignoring the existence of 
self-interest and the social affections, he enjoins the 
exercise of both. To provide for one's self and one's 
family he regards as a sacred duty. Prudence and 
temperance are virtues of a high order. The self- 
regarding tendencies of our nature are, indeed, indis- 
pensable, as they form the basis of the social affections 



INDUSTEIAL FOKCES. 101 

and the ethical sentiment. We can only desire for others 
what we would wish for ourselves. What an individual 
desires others should do to him is the standard by which 
his conduct towards others can alone be regulated. The 
precepts, " Do unto others as ye would others should 
do unto you," "Love your neighbour as yourself," 
embody the purest principles of morality, and they are 
based on the self-regarding principles of man's nature. 

In order to ascertain how a man would act under 
a variety of motives operating concurrently 
upon him, it is necessary, we are told, to isolation 
proceed by ascertaining how he would act 
under each particular motive taken separately.-^ But 
this would not be sufficient. Analysis must be followed 
by synthesis. After ascertaining the operation of each 
motive taken separately, it would be necessary, next, to 
ascertain what the effect would be if operating together. 
A cannon ball is projected by the force of gunpowder. 
From what we know of the laws of motion, we might 
conclude that the ball would proceed onward through 
space at an uniform rate of speed, and in a straight line. 
But this conclusion would be erroneous, for two other 
forces here come into play; the one, gravity, deflects the 
ball to the earth's sm'face; the other, the resistance of 
the atmosphere, impedes its progress ; and the result of 
this combination of forces is that the ball, after de- 
scribing a curve, is speedily brought to the earth's surface. 

^ Unsettled Questions, p. 139. 



102 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

In the same manner mental forces impede or counteract 
one another. The desire of wealth, for instance, like the 
force of the gunpowder, may be the impelling motive, 
and from what we know of the laws of mind we might 
arrive at a tolerably correct conclusion as to its opera- 
tion ; but this motive might be counteracted by others, 
such as sympathy, or the sense of duty, so that an 
entirely different result would take place from what 
might have been expected. 

It is to be noted, however, that the process here 
Difference recommended — that, namely, of testing the 
fo^rce^an/ various forces acting concurrently — is precisely 
a law. ^-j^g^^ which the deductionists do not adopt. 
They have hitherto made no attempt to ascertain the 
action of those other motives that are concerned in the 
production of the phenomena under investigation. 
Indeed, they have only partially examined the operation 
of the one motive they have adopted as the basis of 
their system. The first step in this direction would be 
to discover what those other motives really were, and 
afterwards their mode of operation. But this field of 
inquiry the deductionists have left entirely unexplored. 
They have discovered the existence of one motive, the 
desire of wealth, and they have not attempted to look 
for any others. As, however, they admit the existence 
of other motives, they should ascertain what they are, 
and next their mode of operation, separately and con- 
currently. It is absurd to discuss the laws of a science 
before we have ascertained its forces. The law of gravi- 



INDUSTKIAL FOKCES. 103 

tation is that it varies directly as the mass, and 
inversely as the square of the distance ; but the exist- 
ence of gravitation as a force was known before the law 
was discovered. A law is the mode in which a force 
operates, and not the force itself, and we can have no 
knowledge of industrial law till we have first ascertained 
the forces which produce industrial phenomena. 

A man obtains an income of, let us say, ^62000 a 
year from business, which is all he can possibly j)-ggj,ent 
earn, and he spends the whole of it on himself, kinds of 

forces. 

Another man obtains iOSOOO a year, which is all 
he can possibly earn, but he spends half of it in charity. 
A third, who conducts his business on the strictest prin- 
ciples of honesty, obtains only ^BIOOO a year, when, were 
he less scrupulous, he might as easily earn twice the 
amount. In each of these cases the impelling motive is 
undoubtedly the desire of wealth. In the first, we may 
assume, for argument's sake, this desire to be the sole 
motive ; in the second, however, as one half of the 
amount earned was spent in charity, we must assume 
that social sympathy had something to do with the 
result; in other words, that the desire of wealth 
was strengthened by the social affections ; but in 
the third, another force comes into operation which 
does not strengthen but impedes the impelling motive. 
This is the ethical sentiment. Or take another illustra- 
tion. A workman is engaged by the week or month at 
a fixed rate of wages. If his sole motive were the desire 
to obtain the maximum of wealth by the minimum 



104 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

expenditure of labour, he will do exactly the amount 
of work, and no more, which will secure him continued 
employment. Another man, engaged in the same way, 
and at the same fixed rate of wages, is also impelled 
by the same motive, but, in addition, has a desire to 
please his employer, which he thinks he can best do 
by performing a satisfactory amount of work. The 
additional motive makes him more energetic, and he 
works all the better for it. A third man, similarly 
engaged, is not of a social disposition and has no wish 
to please anybody in particular, but has a desire to do 
his duty, and this additional motive induces him to work 
harder or better than he would otherwise do if his sole 
motive were a desire to obtain his wages. Here we have 
two forces, or motives, which the deductionist takes no 
account of, but which, nevertheless, have undoubted 
influence on industrial activity. 

Motives or impulses are called forces because they 
move or impel to action. This they do by operating on 
volition. A motive, however, is only one of a whole 
series of forces terminating in activity. There is, first, 
sensation, then emotion, next motive, and, last of all, 
volition. The muscular sensations are the primary 
sensibilities; the emotions are secondary, derived, or 
compound feelings ; the sensations or emotions, wheii 
viewed in connection with an object as their cause, 
become motives ; and volition is the connecting link 
between these and the resultant action. 



INDCJSTEIAL FOKOES. 105 

Every motive concerned in industrial action may be 
termed an industrial force. By industrial force 

Classifica- 

I understand that kind of force which produces tion of 
industrial action ; and by industrial action I 
mean that kind of action which has reference to the 
production or exchange of wealth, using the latter 
term in its technical sense. According to the classifica- 
tion usually adopted by ethical writers, motives are of 
two kinds. Self -regarding and Non-self-regarding, or Ego- 
istic and Altruistic. But we do not ascend from the 
Egoistic to the Altruistic at a single bound. There is an 
intermediate stage between the two which must be passed 
before we can reach the higher. As in inductive science 
we proceed from a single fact to a series of similar 
facts before we can arrive at the conception of law ; as 
in language we rise from the concrete through the 
collective to the abstract ; so in Ethics we can reach 
the Altruistic only through the collective or social stage. 
Motives may be classified according to the standpoint 
of the subject of them. As an object, person, or action, 
for instance, may be viewed from the I, we, or other 
standpoint, so motives may be viewed and designated 
according as they refer to one's self only, to others along 
with one's self, and to others apart from one's self. If 
regarded from the I point of view, or in a strictly 
personal aspect, motives may be called Egoistic (from 
lyd)) ; from the we point of view, or in a semi-personal 
or social aspect, they may be called Hemeistic (from 
i7jU£tc) ; and if from other than a self-regarding point of 



106 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

view, they may be termed (still preserving the Greek 
pronominal system of nomenclature) Allostic (from 
aWoo). We apprehend objects, persons, or actions from 
the first point of view, as it were spontaneously ; from 
the second, with more or less difficulty, according to 
the extent of our intimacy with those with whom we 
associate ourselves ; and from the third, only by a great 
mental effort, and after we have been long accustomed 
to view things from a purely social standpoint. The 
forces with which we have to deal may therefore be 
classified as follows : — 

I. The Egoistic, which have reference to things, and 
have for their object the gratification of those sensations 
and emotions which centre in self. They include : — 

1. Wants ; as food, drink, exercise, rest. 

2. Desires ; as the comforts, conveniences, and 

luxuries of Hfe. 
n. The Hemeistic, which have reference to persons, 
and have for their object the gratification of the social 
emotions. They include : — 

1. The Affections proper and friendship. 

2. The Desires ; as admiration, approbation, and 

esteem of our fellow-men. 

3. Motives of the impassioned order ; as love, hate, 

fear, resentment. 
III. The Allostic, which have reference to actions, 
and have for their object justice. They include : — 

Fidelity, truth, gratitude, generosity, and benefi- 
cence. 



INDUSTRIAL FORCES. 107 

The Egoistic group I have placed first because it is 
the strongest, the most important, and because The 
it forms the basis of the two following groups, import- 
The Hemeistic I have placed second, because f^Jl^^triai 
it is inferior in strength and importance to forces. 
the former, and is superior in both respects to the 
AUostic. . In the order of development, the Egoistic 
might be designated, to use a geological term, the 
primary, the Hemeistic the secondary, and the Allostic 
the tertiary order of industrial forces. The two latter 
are distinct and independent, but are derivative in their 
origin, as are motives from emotions, and emotions from 
sensations. 

The Egoistic forces I have subdivided into (1) Wants 
and (2) Desires. Among the former I have „, „ 
placed Appetite first, because it is most im- division, 

or wants. 

perative in its demands, and its influence 
most conspicuous. To the demands of appetite may 
be ascribed nearly the whole of the industrial activity 
we see everywhere around us ; and to this, as the 
remote or proximate cause, may be traced the con- 
tinual wars among savage tribes, the early migrations 
of the human race, and the movements of population 
generally all over the world, past and present. All 
must eat in order to live, but many live only in order 
that they may eat. It may indeed be said that the 
great mass of mankind live for nothing else. Perhaps 
three-fourths of the human race are content if they 
can only get enough to satisfy the cravings of appetite, 



108 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

and provide themselves with decent covering for their 
bodies. This is more particularly the case in the East, 
where the great bulk of the population of the globe 
exists. " The Hindoo workman," says Mr. Brassey, 
*' knows no other want than his daily portion of rice, 
and the torrid climate renders water-tight habitations 
and ample clothing unnecessary. The labourer, there- 
fore, desists from work as soon as he has provided for 
the necessaries of the day. Higher wages would add 
nothing to his comfort, it only serves to diminish his 
ordinary industry."^ Mr. Wallace, the naturalist, speak- 
ing of the sago tree as food for the inhabitants of the 
Malay Archipelago, reckons that one tree will produce 
food sufficient for one man for a whole year, while two 
men will prepare it in five days, and two women will 
take five more days to bake the whole produce into cakes 
ready for use. " The effect of this cheapness," says 
Mr. Wallace, '' is very prejudicial to the inhabitants of 
the sago countries, who are never so well off as in those 
where rice is cultivated. Many of the people have 
neither vegetables nor fruit, but live almost on sago 
and a little fish. ... As far as the comforts of life are 
concerned they are as much inferior to the wild dyak 
of Borneo, as to many of the barbarous tribes of the 
Archipelago."^ Eeaders will recall what Humboldt 



* Worlc and Wages, p. 88. 

^ Malay Archipelago, vol. i. pp. 121, 122; also pp. 356, 357, where 
he says that the people of Muka, and Sago Island, live in " that abject 
state of poverty almost always found where the sago tree is abundant." 



INDUSTRIAL FORCES. 109 

says about the effect which the prolific yield of the 
banana had upon the Indians of Mexico. As long as 
food was plentiful it was found impossible to make the 
natives industrious. To have enough to eat was all 
that they cared for, and when their appetite was satis- 
fied, nothing could move them to the slightest exertion. 
The cultivation of the potato in Ireland had at one 
time a similarly injurious effect, on the industrial habits 
of the natives of that country. Speaking of the labour- 
ing classes of society in Europe generally, Malthus 
says, "if the labourer can obtain the full support of 
himself and family by two or three days' labour ; and, 
if to furnish himseK with conveniences and comforts, 
he must work three or four days more, he will generally 
think the sacrifice too great compared with the objects 
to be obtained"^ — a statement which was strikingly 
illustrated by the colliers in England and Wales during 
the coal famine in 1874, when the high wages current 
at that period enabled them to support themselves by 
working three days in the week and idling the other 
three. 

In the second subdivision I have placed Desires, or 
acquired wants. These are not so important 

..IP , T . . . The second 

as those m the first subdivision. Not being diTision,or 
natural, in the sense of being necessary, they 
are not universal, and vary in strength according to cir- 
cumstances. Only after they are provided with the 

* On Population, vol. iii. p. 23. 



110 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

necessaries do mankind begin to think of the con- 
veniences, comforts, and luxuries of life. Desires are 
stimulated by new objects. The South Sea Islander can 
usually obtain, by one hour's labour, food enough to sup- 
port him for twenty-four, but he will work continuously 
for long periods in order to obtain some article of Euro- 
pean manufacture which has taken his fancy. A Fijian 
has been known to labour for three, and even for six 
months, in the plantations of European settlers in order 
to procure a knife, tomahawk, or some other article of 
trifling value ; and no sooner had he obtained this than 
he would be attracted by some other object and serve a 
like term in order to procure it. But in this respect the 
civilized man is little better than the savage, for no sooner 
has he gratified one desire than he creates another. He 
is never satisfied with what he has but is always seeking 
more. Contentment is not one of the virtues of civiliza- 
tion. With all the accumulated experience of the race, 
with the inherited wealth of centuries, with the dis- 
coveries of science, the improvements of labour-saving 
machines and in the means of locomotion, we do not 
find that the modern civilized man toils any less, or is 
more contented than his forefathers. The cheaper an 
article becomes, the less we esteem it. The more plenti- 
ful any material, the more we waste it. A machine is 
invented that makes twenty stitches for one that could 
formerly be made by hand, and we now put in twenty 
stitches for one that we put in formerly. The more we 
have, the more we spend. Value is not synonymous 



INDUSTRIAL FORCES. Ill 

with utility but with scarceness. As old desires are 
satisfied, new ones take their places, and in all pro- 
bability there will never come a time when this will be 
changed, and that community which has surpassed all 
others in the creation of artificial wants shall not be 
deemed the most, but the least civilized. According to 
Say, that society is most civilized which produces most 
and consumes most, or, in other words, which has the 
greatest number of artificial wants. 

We come now to the second, or Hemeistic group of 
forces. Man is not made to live alone. His ^, 

Tne 

mental, no less than his physical organization, Hemeistic 

forces. 

compels him to associate with his fellows. 
Every one is related to some one else. A man has, or 
has had, a father and mother ; he may have a brother or 
sister, or some other relatives ; and these relationships 
he cannot divest himself of, or the associations connected 
with them. But his associations extend beyond the 
domestic circle and embrace friends, acquaintances, and 
ultimately society at large; and these associations call 
forth certain emotions and desires which we designate 
the social affections. The deductionist, however, accepts 
only those motives included under the first group in 
our list, and rejects those included under the second and 
third. Personal motives only are retained, and social 
and moral are rejected. Why is this ? Is man, in his 
industrial relations, not influenced by motives of a social 
character? Is parental, fiHal, or conjugal affection no 
incentive to action ? Does a man never act for friend- 



112 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

ship's sake ? Does a workman never put forth an effort 
in order to obtain the approbation of his employer, or 
the esteem of his fellows ? Does an employer never do 
anything with a view to secure the respect and esteem of 
his workmen ? On the contrary, do we not find that 
men in every condition of life are continually acting with 
a view to obtain the good opinion of others, and do they 
not constantly abstain from acts which, though beneficial 
to themselves are hurtful to others, for fear of incurring 
the hatred or contempt of their fellow-creatures ? We 
all know, indeed, that motives of this kind largely in- 
fluence industrial activity. Why, then, ignore them ? The 
emotions, or motives of the impassioned order, as love, 
anger, fear, also belong to this group. The deductionist, 
however, takes no account of them whatever, although 
they are forces of the very greatest importance in in- 
dustrial activity. They act on volition, which they 
strengthen or weaken according to circumstances. If I 
love a person, I will avoid doing him an injury, and 
will probably exert myself on his behalf. If I am 
angry with a person, I will not go out of my way 
to do him a service; I might even avoid doing some- 
thing I had previously determined on, because it might 
be to his advantage; and if he is a rival in business, my 
feeling towards him will give strength to my resolution to 
secure success at his expense. Why are all such motives 
ignored ? We grant that they are awkward elements for 
the deductionist to deal with, but that surely is no 



INDUSTRIAL FOECES. 113 

reason wliy we should ignore them. If they cannot be 
made to fit in with our system, so much the worse for 
our system. 

The last group on the list is the Allostie, which 
also, though in a lesser degree, is largely con- rJ^■^^ 
cerned with industrial activity. Every man f-iiostio 

•^ "^ torce& 

has a certain rule of propriety, or ra diov, 
according to which he shapes his conduct. This rule or 
standard we call duty or honour. In acting up to this 
standard, a man will often do what is contrary to his 
personal gain, as, for instance, when he pays a just debt 
that has never been claimed, and is never likely to be ; 
when he corrects an error in his favour in an account 
which has been presented to him for payment, and 
which would not otherwise be detected ; when he pays 
for an article more than is asked, because he believes it 
to be worth it ; when he sells a sound article when 
he could make a larger profit by selling a spurious 
one ; when he pays his creditors in full, after obtaining 
a legal discharge from his debts. In acting up to this 
standard he may even do what is contrary to his social 
instincts, as when he would rather witness the sufferings 
of those who are bound to him by the ties of affection 
than be guilty of a dishonourable act, or when he prefers 
a conscientious discharge of duty to fame, power, or social 
advancement. In these and all similar cases a man 
does what he considers to be proper, honourable, or just, 
and apart altogether from motives appealing to his per- 

I 



114 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

sonal or social interests. It is not necessary we should 
in this place go into the question of the origin of this 
standard. Whether it be intuitive or acquired makes no 
difference. It is enough for our purpose that it exists, 
and that it is of the character here described. 



( 115 ) 



CHAPTEE VII. 



ON VALUE. 



The modern school of economists do not approve of 
the distinction which Adam Smith makes be- ^ , . 

Value m 

tween value in use, and value in exchange, "^se and in 

exclaange. 

They have only one kind of value, namely, 
value in exchange. Value, in the language of econo- 
mists, means, according to Mill, exchange value; and 
he tells us that when he does not use the adjunct 
'^ exchange," it must always be understood.^ This defi- 
nition of the word has been generally concurred in by 
subsequent writers. 

By value, or exchange value, Mill understands 
" general purchasing power," or, " the com- ^ . 
mand which its possession gives over purchase- definitions 
able commodities in general." ^ Senior defines 
it to be " that quality in a thing which fits it to be 
given or received in exchange ; " ^ and Prof. Cairnes 

* Principles, vol. i. book iii. clx. i. 3. 
^ Ibid. vol. i. book iii. ch. i. 2. 
^ Political Econovvy, p. 14. 



116 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

describes it as "the ratio in which commodities in open 
market are exchanged against each other." ^ These 
definitions all agree in expressing the idea of exchange- 
ability. In this view of the meaning of value I am 
unable to concur. 

Value is no doubt an essential element in exchange, 
Exchange- but exchange is not an essential element in 
not an value. There is, I conceive, a manifest dif- 
eiemenMn ^^^^^^0 between valuo in use, and value in 
value. exchange, which modern writers have over- 
looked. Value in use is holders' value; value in ex- 
change is sellers' value. A man may hold a thing, not 
in order to sell or exchange it, but in order to use it. 
Many things possess value that are not exchangeable at 
all. Indeed, if we limit value by things exchangeable, 
we shall exclude a large and very important class of 
commodities. A man may possess an article which may 
be altogether unsaleable, and yet he may place a very 
high value upon it because he understands its uses 
and can turn it to a profitable account. A labour-saving 
machine, for instance, may have no exchange value, as 
the public may have no faith in its capabilities, or so 
little confidence in the skill of the inventor . that they 
may not trouble themselves even to inquire about it. The 
value of the invention may ultimately come to be re- 
cognized, but in the first instance, practical men hold 
aloof and will have nothing to do with it. Again, an 

^ Some Leading Questions, p. 1. 



ON VALUE. 117 

emigrant may take a plough of modern manufactm'e to 
some distant part of the world, say to the East, where the 
natives have been accustomed to scratch the soil with an 
implement which dates its origin from the time of the 
Pharaohs. In such a place the modern plough would 
find no purchaser ; nor would the emigrant gain any- 
thing by sending it back from whence it came, as the 
cost of conveyance might be more than the article would 
fetch. The plough, therefore, would have no exchange 
value, because no one would buy it where it was, and if 
he sent it back to where there were purchasers he would 
gain nothing by it. But suppose the importer used it 
himself in cultivating the soil, could it then be said to 
possess no value to him ? On the contrary, would not 
the very cause that had rendered it valueless in exchange, 
namely, the distance from a purchaser, make it all the 
more valuable to him under the circumstances ? Or 
take another case. An enterprising emigrant takes up 
a section of land in one of the islands of the South 
Pacific for the purpose of growing cotton for the English 
market. Suppose that the soil and climate were every- 
thing that could be desired, that labour was cheap, that 
there was an unlimited demand for the produce which he 
could raise, that, in fact, the enterprise had in it all the 
elements of success ; suppose all this, but suppose also 
that he was the only planter in that portion of the globe 
who had ever embarked in such an enterprise, and what 
would be the exchange value of his estate ? It is quite 
evident that if he wanted to sell it he would find no 



118 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

purchaser. Possibly, after he had demonstrated that 
his enterprise was a successful one, when, in fact, it had 
ceased to be an enterprise at all, he would find pur- 
chasers enough. But can it be said that, till then, his 
property had no industrial value ? The inventor's 
labour-saving machine, the emigrant's plough, and the 
planter's estate, had all of them value in this sense, 
independent altogether of their exchangeability. Their 
industrial value was antecedent to their value in ex- 
change, and the latter was the effect, not the cause, of 
the former. Value in use is the basis of industrial 
activity; without it there would be no production, and 
without production there could be no exchange. To 
limit value by exchange, then, is to deprive Economic 
Science of the very foundation on which the whole 
superstructure rests. 

According to Mill, there are two elements essential to 
irtiiity,and valuo, namely, utility, and difficulty of attain- 
of attata- Client, or scarcity.^ But these two elements 
ment. ^^ j^qj^ q£ themselves constitute value. An 
article may be useful, and at the same time valueless. 
Water, for instance, is an element necessary to human 
existence, and is therefore in the highest degree useful. 
But it does not on that account possess value. An 
article may also be exceedingly scarce and yet be per- 
fectly valueless, as, for instance, certain kinds of metals 

^ Senior and Prof. Cairnes maintain there are three, namely, utility, 
difficulty of attainment, and transferableness. But surely transferable, 
ness is included in the term exchange value. 



ON VALUE. 119 

and minerals well-known to chemists, which I need not 
here enumerate. And even difficulty of attainment com- 
bined with utility will not confer value on an article. 
Water, though useful, and ever so scarce, as in the 
case of a traveller in an arid desert, does not have 
any value conferred on it on that account, if the 
traveller does not want it. But if he wanted it, 
if he was thirsty, and if he believed that it would 
satisfy his thirst, water would then be immediately 
invested with a value in his estimation which neither 
its acknowledged utility nor its inaccessibility or scarcity 
previously conferred. A threshing machine is an article 
which possesses utility, though of a different kind; but in 
the eyes of a native of Tierra del Fuego, even if he had 
its uses explained to him, and was assured that it was 
the only article of its kind in his country, it would have 
no value if he did not want to use it. Pure air is 
necessary to health, and is therefore useful ; but though 
I may know that it is so, and may be perfectly assured 
that the air I constantly breathe is not pure, and that 
pure air is perfectly unattainable in the unwholesome 
atmosphere in which I live, still I may attach no value 
to it. But if I knew its use and at the same time 
wanted it, I would probably give up my business or 
profession and go abroad in order to obtain it ; in other 
words, I might value it so much as to sacrifice my 
prospects for life in order to possess it. 

Human desire, then, I maintain, is the essence of 
value. We value an object because we believe its pos- 



120 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

session will satisfy a desire, and we desire to possess 
Essential or retain possession of an object only when we 
of value, believe possession will be useful or agreeable 
to us, that is to say, confer pleasure or remove pain. 
The deprivation of the means of enjoyment creates pain, 
the possession of these means creates pleasure. Thus, 
whatever creates pleasure or removes pain becomes an 
object of desire and therefore of value. First, in the 
order of time, comes the pain of deprivation, or the 
pleasure of possession; next, the mind, connecting the 
feeling of pain or pleasure with an object capable, or 
supposed to be capable, of removing the one or con- 
ferring the other, desires to obtain or retain possession 
of that object. Thus the deprivation of food creates 
pain; the mind, connecting the pain with an object, 
food, believed to be capable of relieving the pain, 
desires its possession. The deprivation of wealth creates 
all the pains incident to poverty, as physical privation, 
toil, impotence, and indignity; and we desire the 
removal of these by the possession of the means which 
wealth places at our command. It is hardly correct, 
however, to speak of utility or difficulty of attainment 
as elements at all, for they are simply factors in the cal- 
culation by which the mind forms its estimate of the 
desirableness of an object. 

As compared with utility, difficulty of attainment is 
Difficulty a subordinate or accidental factor in value, 

of attain- 
ment sub- as the latter only helps to direct the mind 

ordinate • -i p 

to utility, to the former. When deprived of a thmg 



ON VALUE. 121 

which is useful to us we are then forcibly impressed 
with its utility, which, but for the deprivation, might 
otherwise have been overlooked. Utility, on the other 
hand, is an essential factor, as the value of a 
thing depends on its utility. Nevertheless, utility is 
not value. We value a thing because it is desirable; 
and the more desirable a thing is the more valuable it 
is, and the less desirable the less valuable. But it is 
desirable because we believe it to be useful, that is to 
say, capable of satisfying a desire. Utility may exist 
apart from desire, but desire cannot exist apart from 
utility. 

We cannot,, therefore, speak of inherent or intrinsic 
value. Value does not exist in the object Definition 
desired, but in the mind. It is not an objective °^ valine- 
but a subjective quality. It is not a quahty "in a 
thing," as Senior defines it, but a purely mental attri- 
bute. If value were a quality existing in a thing, all 
objects would have everywhere and at all times the same 
value. But the same object may be both valuable and 
valueless to different individuals, and even to the same 
individuals at different times and at different places. 
An object may be valuable to one man and not to 
another ; it may even be valuable and worthless to 
the same man at different times and under different 
circumstances. To a hungry man food is valuable ; to 
the same man dying of thirst it has no value whatever. 
Again, if by value we mean exchange value, we should 
be able to exchange equally everywhere : so many yards 



122 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

or pounds of one commodity would exchange for so 

many yards or pounds of another. Value, or rather 

price, would then not be determined by demand and 

supply, as all articles would have their true value 

stamped upon them, and would exchange themselves, 

as it were, automatically. Value is that quality or 

attribute with which the mind invests an object capable, 

or supposed to be capable, of satisfying a desire. It 

is, in fact, desirableness. 

It 
So far we have treated of value in use, which I 

conceive to be true value. Value in exchange, or 

exchange value, on the other hand, is not value at all, 

but Price. The exchange value of a thing is what that 

thing will fetch in the market, that is, its price, which 

is something altogether from its value. Value is an 

absolute, not a relative term ; price, on the other hand, 

is a relative and not an absolute term. The value of a 

thing is what that thing is worth to me ; the price of a 

thing, on the other hand, is what some one else will 

give me for it. Exchange value we shall therefore 

consider in the following chapter when we treat of price. 



( 123 ) 



CHAPTEE VIIL 



ON PRICE. 



When we come to exchange, or to actual transactions 
in the market, it is no longer with value but Difference 
with price that we have to deal. The essential ^^h^^and 
difference between value and price consists in p^^^®- 
this, that while the former is a single estimate, the 
latter is a double estimate, the estimate of a buyer or 
buyers on the one side, and of a seller or sellers on the 
other. The price of a thing is what it will fetch in the 
market ; ^ and while there is only one price at a given time 
and place, there are always several values. A price can 
only be arrived at when two or more values coincide, or 



^ Here we have another illustration of the scientific misappropriation 
of terms in conamon use. Value, according to Mill (and his followers have 
one and all endorsed his definition), means " exchange value," that is to 
say Price (^Principles, book iii. ch. v. 1), whereas -Price he defines as 
"value in money," or monetary consideration (book iii. ch. i. 2). Now 
Value (from valere, to be sound, to be worth or worthy) properly means 
worth, estimate, or utility ; and Price (from prendre, to take or seize) has 
the same meaning that he gives to Value, namely, exchange value, " that 
which is taken in purchase or payment." (Richardson.) 



124 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

when the estimate put upon an article by a seller agrees 
with the estimate put upon it by a buyer. Not only do 
individuals differ in their values, but they have different 
methods of arriving at them. One man may estimate an 
article according to the use he can make of it, that is, its 
true value ; another man may estimate an article accord- 
ing to its scarcity, that is, monopoly value ; a third 
may estimate it according to its cost of production, 
which is variously called its necessary, natural, or 
nominal value. The market, however, is the true test 
of all these values. 

The market price is arrived at by a comparison of 
^ . individual values. I value a commodity which 

Mow price •' 

is deter- J desire to sell, and I also value the commodity 

mined. 

which I desire to get in exchange for it. The 
person who desires to buy my commodity or sell another 
commodity to me likewise puts his value on both. If 
my value is the same as his, the equation of our values 
will be the price. But if our values do not agree, if he 
demands more than I am willing to give, or I demand 
more than he is willing to give me in exchange for what 
I have, and if neither of us will give way, there will be 
no exchange, and therefore no price. 

Price may also be said to be determined by Correla- 
tive Demand. Each party to an exchange demands so 
much of one commodity for so much of another. If the 
demands are equal, the equation of the two demands will 
be the price or rate at which the exchange will be effected ; 
if unequal, no price can be quoted, unless the demands of 



ON PEICE. 125 

the one rise or fall to the demands of the other, when a 
price will be fixed at that point. 

Economists usually speak of demand as something 
quite different from supply. Demand they re- j^^^^g^j^^ 
gard as a qualificative, supply as a quantitative ^^^ 
element ; the former as having reference to relation to 

price. 

desire, the latter to quantity suppHed. To 
speak of the ratio between demand and supply, in the 
sense in which these terms are understood, is absurd, 
for, as Mill asks. What ratio can there be between two 
things not of the same denomination, as a quantity and 
desire? "A ratio between a demand and a supply," he 
says, "is only intelligible if by demand we mean the 
quantity demanded, and if the ratio intended is between 
the quantity demanded and the quantity supplied."^ 
This is undoubtedly true ; there cannot be a desii-e on 
the one side and a supply or quantity on the other, and 
it is perfectly evident there cannot be quantity on both 
sides apart from desire. 

To get rid of this difficulty. Mill accordingly reduces 
both elements to the same denomination, and ,^.,,, 

' Milis 

explains Demand to mean "the quantity de- definition 
manded," and Supply, "the quantity offered for terms 

Demand 

sale."'' As the expression "offered for sale" and 
implies demand on the side of the seller, both ^^ ^' 



* Principles, vol. i. book iii. ch.. ii. 4. 

* To the same effect Prof. Jenkins defines supply as " quantity holders 
are williag to sell," and demand as " quantity buyers are willing to pur. 
chase." See Essay on Demand and Supply in Recess Studies, pp. 151-2. 



126 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

elements may now be said to be denominationally the 
same, but, instead of there being one element on each 
side, there are now two : a desire and a quantity, and a 
quantity and a desire. But this does not help to eluci- 
date matters much. Is the ratio to be between the 
desire on the one side and the quantity on the other ; or 
does quantity go against quantity, and desire against 
desire ? Mill saw that he was involving himself in a 
difficulty here, for he goes on to say, ^'But the quantity 
demanded is not a fixed quantity, even at the same time 
and place ; it varies according to the value : if the thing 
is cheap, there is usually a demand for more of it than 
when it is dear. The demand, therefore, partly depends 
on the value. But it was before laid down that the 
value depends on the demand. From this contradiction 
how shall we extricate ourselves? How solve the 
paradox of two things each depending upon the 
other ? " -^ There is no solution possible. If the quantity 
"varies according to the value," clearly the value cannot 
be determined by the quantity. It is a contradiction in 
terms. But there is really no necessity for rendering 
the subject more complex by introducing the element 
of qua.ntity at all, for the mental process indicated 
by the term Demand is quite sufficient to explain all 
the phenomena. It is demand on both sides. The 
buyer demands, and the seller demands likewise; and 
the demand is the same in both cases, for the object con- 

^ Princijples, vol. i. book iii. cli. ii. 3. 



ON PKTCE. 127 

templated is an exchange of commodities. If quantity 
be imported into the question at all, it must only be as a 
subordinate or accidental element, for in no sense can 
it rank with desire, or even with utility. At the most, 
it is only a cause of a cause ; it may influence utility in 
the same manner as utility influences demand. If a 
man has a larger quantity of any commodity than he 
requires, this fact may predispose him to get rid of a 
portion of it, or make him desirous to sell. In other 
words, quantity may influence demand in proportion as 
it affects the utility of the commodity. 

The fact of the matter is, the terms Demand and 
Supply do not properly express the nature of Demand 
the process which takes place when commodities g^^piy 
are exchanged in the open market. The word g°|ia,bie 
Demand, as we have said, signifies desire, but ^^rms. 
the term Supply signifies a stock, provision, or quantity 
provided. The word Supply is therefore not the cor- 
relative of Demand; the latter indicates a mental process, 
while the former has no such meaning. If Supply is 
the correct word, then its correlative is not Demand, 
but some word indicating- absence of supply.^ On the 
other hand, if Demand is the correct word, its correlate 
is not Supply, but some other term, expressive of 
the mental process which takes place when anything is 
** offered for sale." What is that mental process? It 

^ The correlative of ^atp^Zy, in Parliamentary pliraseology, is Expendi. 
ture — ^income as distinguislied from outcome, if I may be permitted the 
expression. 



128 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

is the same, exactly, that takes place on the other side. 
The seller desires or demands, just the same as the 
buyer. The buyer desires to buy, and the seller desires 
to sell, and it is demand on both sides. There is no 
difference in the mental process between the one and the 
other, and the object aimed at by both is exactly the 
same, namely, exchange of commodities. If a seller 
desired to sell, and no one desired to buy, or if the buyer 
desired to buy, and no one desired to sell, no exchange 
would take place. In other words, both are demanders, 
as each desires something which the other has ; and, 
in the same sense, both are suppliers, as each comes 
provided with something to offer in exchange for that 
which he desires to obtain. 

There is really no necessity for importing into the 
Correia- question the element of quantity at all. The 
demand, whole of the confusion has arisen from the use 
of the word Supply. If instead of the words Demand 
and Supply we used the term Correlative Demand, all 
would be clear. And this, as I have said, is the only 
correct way of expressing the mental process involved in 
exchange. Supply, in the sense of offered for sale, or 
placed on the market, is really a demand for something 
in exchange for that offered, precisely in the same way, 
and to the same extent, as Demand is an offer to 
supply something in exchange for that demanded. The 
seller has one kind of commodity and the buyer has 
another, and they mutually demand an exchange. 

Suppose, however, that Mill's definition were the 



ON PRICE. 129 

correct one, and that supply, in the sense of quantity 
offered for sale, regulated prices ; it would Quantita- 
then follow that the price of a commodity noTa^^ 
would vary in exact proportion to the increase ^i^^^t\n 
or decrease of the quantity of that commodity P^^^®- 
placed on the market. If the supply fell one-third, 
the price would rise in the same proportion, that 
is, exactly one-third ; on the other hand, if the supply 
increased one-third, the price would fall one-third, 
and so on, the price falling and rising in exact pro- 
portion to the quantity supplied. I need scarcely say 
that, as a matter of fact, prices do not rise and fall in 
this fashion. Take the oft -quoted case of corn, for 
instance. As pointed out by Tooke, the price of this 
commodity has risien in England from 100 to mi 
200 per cent, and upwards, when the utmost ^^ ^ 

^ deficiency. 

computed deficiency in the crops has not been 
more than between one-sixth and one-third below 
average, and when that deficiency had been relieved 
by foreign supplies.-^ After a full review of the whole 
phenomena of price, as affected by quantity supplied, 
the only approach to a "law" which the author of the 
History of Prices was able to arrive at was the very 
general one that "if there should be a deficiency of 
the crops amounting to one-third, without any surplus 
from a former year, and without any chance of relief 
from importation, the price might rise five, six, and 
even seven fold." 

^ History of Prices, vol. i. p. 13. 



130 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

Eeverse the case, and assume that there is a surplus 
The case instead of a deficiency. Let us suppose that 
^^^ the ordinary consumption of a country is, say, 

one million of bushels, the average price 
5s. per bushel, and that the crop of wheat in a given 
year yielded just double that quantity, namely, two 
millions of bushels. The farmers could then afford to 
sell the two millions of bushels at about one -half the 
price they could the one million, making due allowance, 
of course, for extra expenses in harvesting, storing, and 
bringing to market the larger quantity. If the farmers 
were all well off they would, if they could not find a 
market abroad, hold over their surplus till the following 
year ; that is to say, there would be no urgent desire 
to sell, and prices would not only not fall one-half, but 
they would not fall at all, or very little. On the 
other hand, if the farmers were not well off, if they 
were in debt, if their necessities were pressing, they 
would desire to sell as quickly as possible. There 
would then be more sellers than buyers in the market ; 
the demand to sell would be greater than the demand 
to buy, and prices would fall. But the cause of the fall 
would not be the excess of the supply for that would 
have been held over till another year, but the necessities 
of the farmers, or the greater demand to sell as compared 
with the lesser demand to buy. 

Any excess or deficiency in the quantity of any 
commodity at any given time or place only affects 
prices by predisposing holders to sell or to buy. The 



ON PEICE. 131 

absence of sufficient storage accommodation may, for 
example, induce a farmer to take a much lower Effects of 

p T • IT 1 J.1 • 1 1 an excess 

price lor nis crop than he otherwise would, ordefi- 
In England, during the thirteenth and four- ^o^^o^f. 
teenth centuries, and even much later, the *^®^- 
farmers were without capital, the trade of the corn- 
dealer was then unknown, and the only storage ac- 
commodation for grain in any considerable quantity 
was in the Abbey Granges.^ The consequence of this 
state of things was that the farmer had to dispose 
of his crop at low prices immediately after harvest. 
The price of corn in those days was almost always 
extremely low at harvest time, and invariably rose as 
the year advanced, and frequently to an enormous 
height just before next harvest. It is related by- 
Stow, that in 1317 wheat, which before harvest was 
selling at £4 per quarter, fell immediately the crop 
was got in to 6s. Sd. per quarter, or to one-twelfth its 
previous price. Here it might be said that the absence 
of accommodation was the cause of the reduction, and 
the statement would be quite as correct as to say that 
it was the excess of supply ; but the absence of accom- 
modation only affected the price by increasing the 
demand for a market, and this increased demand was 
the true cause of the fall in price. 

Precisely the same effect takes place in the money 
market when there is a pressing necessity for money ; 

^ Eden, State of the Poor, vol. i. p. 18. 



132 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

that is to say, the price rises, but here again not in pro- 
Fiuctua- portion to the deficiency of supply, or indeed 
tJ^^money ^^ accouut of the supply at all, but in propor- 
market. ^j^j^^ ^^^ -j^ exact proportion, to the demand. 
Mr. Bagehot thus explains the cause of a rise in the 
price of money. " Up to a certain point," he says, 
''money is a necessity. If a merchant has acceptances 
to meet to-morrow, money he must and will find to-day, 
at some price or other. And it is the urgent need of the 
whole body of merchants which runs up the yalue of 
money so wildly and to such a height in a great panic." ^ 
Here, there was no deficiency, or anticipated deficiency, 
in the supply ; there was no sudden withdrawal of gold 
from the country. The money was in the banks, or in 
the hands of the bill-discounters, in quantity, it must be 
presumed, sufficient for ordinary business requirements. 
But there was a sudden increase in the demand for it to 
meet the urgent requirements of the merchants. True, it 
may be said, but the sudden increase in the demand was 
due to a previous scarcity, a large amount of money 
having been already invested, or wasted in wild specu- 
lation, and was therefore not immediately available. 
But if a larger quantity of money than usual had been 
previously invested, this, again, could only have been 
caused by an antecedent demand for it, so that which- 
ever way we look at the matter we still come back to 
demand as the cause. 

* Lombard Street, p. 119. 



ON PRICE. 133 

Has quantity, or difficulty of attainment, then, no 
effect upon price? The answer is that it may or ^ 
it may not. In the first place, it is not the actual ^^ relation 

to price. 

quantity in existence, or the actual quantity in 
the market, that we have to deal with, but what we 
think is the quantity ; and, in the second place, it is not 
only what we think the quantity is, but this combined 
with what we think it ought to be. The stock of any 
commodity may be much less than we believe it to be, 
and if so there will- be no corresponding increase in 
price ; or it may be much larger than we believe it to be, 
and if so there will be no corresponding reduction. It is 
opinion that influences prices, and that opinion may be 
founded on a correct knowledge of the state of the 
market, or it may not ; but in either case the result 
is the same. If a seller thinks there is a deficiency 
of any commodity, he may increase his price for that 
commodity; if he thinks there is a surplus, he may 
reduce his price. If a purchaser believes there is a sur- 
plus of any commodity, he will demand a reduction in 
price, for he knows that some holder will submit to a 
sacrifice rather than have his stock left on his hands ; 
if he believes there is a deficiency, he will be eager to 
buy, and to buy at an advanced price, as he thinks he 
will stiU be able to resell at a profit. 

But in saying this much on behalf of quantitativeness 
I am giving it far more prominence than it is reaUy 
entitled to, for it does not follow that a commodity will 
be high or low in price because it is scarce or plentiful. 



134 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

There may be a great increase in the quantity and no 
corresponding decrease in the price ; and there may be 
a great decrease in the quantity and no corresponding 
increase in the price. A decrease in price is even com- 
patible with a decrease in quantity, and an increase in 
price with an increase in quantityo Practically, buying 
and selling is seldom regulated by quantity at all. A 
buyer finds sellers eager to sell, and he does not, as 
a rule, inquire into the cause of this eagerness. It is 
enough for him that it exists, that he can purchase 
readily what he wants ; and he naturally concludes that 
when there are many eager to sell he will get what he 
wants at a reduced price, and he acts accordingly. A 
seller finds buyers eager to buy, and he does not inquire 
into the cause of this eagerness, but accepts the fact, 
and consequently increases his price. It is demand, 
therefore, and not quantity, that determines price. And 
if we go behind demand and inquire what influences 
demand, we shall find that quantitativeness is only one 
cause out of many, as demand may be influenced by a 
variety of causes. Demand, for instance, may be in- 
fluenced by the financial position of the seller. The 
phrases "held well" and '^held weakly," so famihar on 
the stock exchange, illustrate what I mean. Stock is 
said to be "held well" when it is in good hands, or in 
the possession of those who can hold it till they can get 
their own price, and in such a case, no matter how large 
an amount of stock so held or offered for sale, the price 
will be maintained. " Held weakly," on the other hand, 



ON PKICE. 135 

is stock that is in bad hands, or in the possession of those 
who will be forced to sell sooner or later, and in such a 
case the price is likely to decline. Demand may also 
be influenced by fashion; and again the demand for 
one commodity may be influenced by the demand for 
another commodity, as for example, when there is a 
great demand for the necessaries of life there is very 
little demand for labour.^ But, indeed, it is quite un- 
necessary to follow up this part of the inquiry, for the 
causes which influence demand are almost infinite in 
number and variety. It would be just as reasonable to 
inquire into the causes which influence desire, which are 
as numerous as there are objects and ends which are 
desirable. 

* See p. 48. 



136 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTEE IX. 

ON PRICE (continued). 

So far I have treated only of the prices of commodities 
instrn- which are exchanged the one for the other, but 
produc^ ^^^ -'- come to consider a class of commodities, 
tion. ^^ instruments of production, which are not 

themselves exchanged, but only the right to use them. 
These are Labour, Capital, and Land. When a man 
gives his services in exchange for wages, for instance, 
he does not part outright with anything, he only sells, or 
exchanges, the use of what he still possesses, namely, his 
physical and mental faculties. These are still his own, 
and those who have the temporary use of them are held 
responsible for their safe keeping. It is the same with 
Capital and Land, which are not exchanged, but only 
hired, and the hirer has to return them again to their 
owner unimpaired in quantity or quality. 

The wages of labour. Mill teUs us, depend mainly on 
Labour. '* demand and supply," or on '*the proportion 
between population and capital."^ Here, again, the 

^ Principles, vol. i. book ii. cli. x. 1. 



i 



ON PKICE. 137 

element of quantity crops up in a new and unexpected 
shape, for now we have not only a quantity on one, but on 
both sides ; that is to say, if we are to understand by the 
term Population mere numbers, and by the term Capital 
simply quantity or amount of money available. Indeed, 
Mill leaves us in no doubt as to his meaning, for he 
goes on to explain that " by population is here meant the 
number only of the labouring class, or, rather, of those 
who work for hire ; and by capital, only ckculating 
capital, and not even the whole of that, but the part 
which is expended in the direct purchase of labour." 
How, may I venture to ask, can " demand and supply " 
regulate wages, if wages are determined by the "pro- 
portion between population and capital" in the sense 
explained* as above? How, again, can there be any 
"demand" between a number and a quantity; and 
how can there be any ratio between a quantity and a 
demand, or, for that matter, between a quantity and a 
number ? 

But not only is quantity introduced as an element 
on both sides, but special pains have been taken The 
to limit the meaning of the term Capital. By J^^^' 
capital is meant only that portion of the circulat- * ®°^^' 
ing capital "expended in the direct purchase of labour," 
or, in other words, the wages fund. This theory of a 
wages fund has experienced many vicissitudes in recent 
times, but it manages still to maintain its footing in 
certain quarters. The theory originated with Mill, or, at 
all events, he was the first who elaborated it, and for 



138 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

about a quarter of a century it was an unquestioned 
article of faith among his followers.^ The theory was 
first called in question by Mr. Longe ; it was subse- 
quently condemned by Mr. Thornton, and ultimately re- 
pudiated by its author, who professed himself convinced 
by Mr. Thornton's arguments against it. Now, however, 
Prof. Cairnes steps on the scene, and, after reviewing 
the whole controversy, expresses his surprise that Mill 
should have been so easily convinced, and announces 
that, in his opinion, the theory is perfectly unassailable. 
But with all due deference to such a high authority as 
Prof. Cairnes, I venture to say that if the principles of 
Political Economy were no more unassailable than this 
wages-fund theory, they would stand but a poor chance 
of surviving. 

The advocates of the wages-fund theory assume, first, 
Based on that the Capital of a country is a fixed quantity, 
erroneous ^^^ ^.j^^^^ ^^le capital employed in industry is a 
tions. fixed proportion of this quantity ; and, secondly, 

that wages are paid out of that portion of capital which 
is set apart for industry. Both of these propositions, in 
my opinion, are erroneous. 

With regard to the first, namely, that the capital 
That the of a country is a fixed quantity, and that 

capital of 

a country the amount employed in industry is a fixed 

is a fixed . ,» • • t i 

quantity, proportion of this quantity, I have only to 

* Adam Smith, indeed, speaks of " a fund destined for the payment of 
wages," but he enters into no explanation. See Wealth of Nations, book i. 
ch. viii. and elsewhere. 



ON PKICE. 139 

say that there is no fact in Economic Science so well 
established as this, that capital follows profits. If the 
profits of a country are large, capital will flow into 
it; if small, capital will withdraw from it, and seek 
investment elsewhere where profits are larger. Capital 
is always forthcoming wherever there are prospects of 
large profits. In order to procure capital for such 
investments, personal expenses are cut down, money 
lying idle is collected, property is realized, and credit 
strained to the utmost. The capital of a country, there- 
fore, is not a fixed quantity, for if its credit is good, 
and sufficient inducements are offered in the shape of 
interest, it can readily borrow whatever it wants. For 
j]he same reason the capital employed in industry is 
not a fixed quantity, and varies, not in proportion to the 
gross amount in the country, but in proportion to the 
profitableness of the industry of that country. 

With regard to the second proposition, namely, that 
wages are paid out of capital, this is true to That 
a limited extent only. No doubt a certain p^l^out 
amount of capital is requu'ed for the payment ° ^^^^ ^ ' 
of wages, just as a certain amount of capital is necessary 
for the purchase of raw material, though we never heard 
of a special fund for the purchase of the latter. There is 
this essential difference between the two cases, however, 
that while raw material is paid for (in cash or in bills) 
before being used, wages are not paid till they have been 
earned. The employer has the benefit of the labourer's 
services before, and sometimes long before, he is called 



140 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

upon to pay for them. The day labourer is not paid his 
wages till the conclusion of his day's work. The work- 
man who is hired by the week gives his employer the 
benefit of his services from one to six days before the 
latter is called upon to pay for them. The merchant or 
retail trader who pays for his labour by the month ; the 
farmer who pays half-yearly or yearly; and the ship- 
owner who pays at the end of the voyage, which may be 
for twelve or eighteen months, have had, day by day, 
week by week, and month by month, the full benefit of 
their employes' services, with profits added, before being 
called on to pay a fraction of wages. The employe, in 
fact, stands to his employer in the relation of a capitalist 
who advances him the use of his services, and which 
services are ultimately paid for, not out of a wages fund, 
but out of the produce of the services themselves. 

In order to understand the relation between capital 
and labour, we have only to ask what is the 

Eelation *^ 

of profits object of an employer when he hires labour. 

to wages. 

The employer does not hire labour because he 
has a fund set apart for the payment of wages which he 
otherwise would not know what to do with, but because 
he sees his way to making a profit out of it — profit 
being the difference between two prices, the price, 
namely, at which a thing is bought, on the one 
hand, and the price at which it is sold, on the other. 
As long as there is a margin of profit between the wages 
paid for labour and the produce of that labour, so long 
will labour be employed, and no longer. Of course, I am 



ON PEICE. 141 

speaking of productive labour only, for the demand for 
non-productive labour is not influenced by profits, but by 
income or capital, a distinction which the advocates of 
the wages-fund theory have apparently not observed. 
Hence, instead of saying with Eicardo and Fawcett^ 
that a rise in profits can never be brought about except 
by a fall in the rate of wages, or a fall in profits except 
by a corresponding rise in the rate of wages, I should 
rather say that, wherever labour is free and the wages- 
earning classes intelligent, a rise in the rate of 
wages will generally be the result of a rise in profits, 
and a fall in the rate of wages the result of a fall in 
profits. 

I am only surprised that any one who is con- 
versant with the industrial history of the caseof 
day can entertain a different opinion. That ^^^^^^^ 

•^ ^ and coal 

high wages are the result of high profits, and trades. 
vice versa, every one at all acquainted with modern wages 
disputes will acknowledge at once. The history of the 
coal and iron trades disputes in England for the last 
dozen years shows that whenever the price of either of 
these commodities was low, the rate of the wages of those 
employed in their production was low also, and whenever 
the price was high the rate of wages was high in propor- 
tion. Take, for instance, the price of iron and the 

^ Prof. Fawcett, indeed, goes so far as to assert that " it is physically 
impossible that a permanent rise of wages should take place without 
a corresponding diminution of profits." — Manual of Political Economy, 
p. 264. To talk of physical impossibility in connection with the laws 
of wages is surely science run mad. 



142 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

wages of iron workers and colliers during the last few 
years. From midsummer, 1871, Scotch pig-iron ad- 
vanced steadily from 57s. 6d. per ton, till February, 1873, 
when it reached 145s. per ton. Of course, the profits of 
the ironmasters when the latter figure ruled were 
enormous. The high profits induced the ironmasters to 
make extraordinary efforts to keep their furnaces going 
to the utmost extent of their capacity. But to do this 
required an increased supply of labour, to meet which 
there was an increase in the demand, and a corre- 
sponding increase in the rate of wages. Thus we find 
that the wages of puddlers, ironworkers, and colliers 
(coal being largely used in the manufacture of iron, the 
price of the latter commodity influences the wages of 
colliers as well) advanced steadily with the price of iron, 
rising, in February, 1873, from 50 to 60 per cent, above 
what they were in midsummer, 1871. But towards the 
end of 1874 the price of iron receded. In December of 
that year it fell to 76s. 6d. per ton, and wages were 
immediately affected by the reduction, colliers' wages 
falling 25 to 30 per cent., puddlers' and ironworkers' 
27 J per cent., below what they were in February, 1873.-^ 

^ " As wages have sucli an important connection "witli the price of 
iron, it is worth, noting the changes which have taken place during the 
last three years. Starting with midsummer, 1871, it may be assumed 
that the advance in colliers' wages generally was not less than 50 to 60 
per cent. (In Scotland the advance was greater, but late reductions have 
been in like proportion.) The reductions throughout the various dis- 
tricts, though neither uniform as regards time nor amount, may be 
estimated at about 20 to 25 per cent., so that wages now are probably 
about 25 per cent, to 30 per cent, higher than the lowest rate paid prior 



ON PEICE. 143 

A few extracts, culled at random from the trade 
correspondence in the metropolitan journals, will show 

to 1871. The puddlers and ironworkers have submitted to two reductions 
of 10 per cent., which (less 24 per cent, adyance in July quarter) is equal 
to 171 per cent, reduction during the year, and as a further reduction of 
10 per cent, is announced, this will be a reduction in all of 27^ per cent. 
A reduction of Is. per ton in puddling will bring the rate down to 9s. 9d. 
per ton, whilst by the 'Derby' agreement the minimum was fixed at 
9s. 6d. per ton. The arrangement is terminable on 1st July, 1875, if 
desired. Haying made a comparison of wages during the past three 
years, it may be instructiye to place alongside of this the fluctuations in 
iron. Scotch G.M.B. warrants, which were 57s. 6d. in midsummer, 1871, 
advanced to 145s. in February, 1873, from which they have receded to 
76s. 6d. on 31st December, 1874. Welsh bar iron, which was £7 f.o.b. 
Liverpool at midsummer, 1871, advanced to £13, from which it has 
receded to £8 15s. at close of 1874." — Commercial History of 1874, in the 
Economist. 

Another illustration to the same effect comes from the other side 
of the Atlantic : — " We have not yet done paying the penalty for false 
prosperity which followed the war and will continue through the paper- 
money period. All kinds of business are very nauch prostrated. The 
capitalists are accepting lower rates of interest, and the holders of stock 
investments are generally becoming satisfied with 6 per cent, interest 
and even 5 per cent., if the payment of that smaller rate is fully assui'ed. 
Hundreds and thousands are out of employment, and all, rich and poor, 
are gradually coming down to humbler pretensions. As a marked 
evidence of this fact we notice that President Gowen, of the Reading 
E/ailroad and the Eeading Coal and Iron Company, on the 28th inst. 
issued a circular to all clerks, agents, and employes of the companies 
named, notifying them that on the 1st of September, 1876, a general 
reduction in wages in all departments will be made as follows : — Upon 
all persons receiving less than 2000 dols. per annum, a reduction of 
10 per cent. Upon those receiving from 2000 dols. to 5000 dols. per 
annum, a reduction of 15 per cent. Upon those receiving from 5000 to 
10,000 dols. per annum, a reduction of 20 per cent. Upon all receiving 
over 10,000 dols. per annum, a reduction of 30 per cent. This reduction 
of salaries applies to the salaries of President Gowen and the Yice- 
Presidents, as well as to the most humble trackman or switch-tender, 
and is based on the principle that the higher the salary the greater the 
percentage of reduction." — Philadelphia Ledger, August 31st, 1876. 



144 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

that the close relation that exists between prices and 
wages is well understood by practical men. Thus a 
Darlington correspondent writes : — " The declining rates 
of iron within 1874 are indicated not merely by the 
relative prices now and at the beginning of January, 
1873, but also by the reduction of the wages of malleable 
ironworkers within that period by 35 per cent., the last 
reduction of 10 per cent, being declared on Friday." -^ 
A Sheffield correspondent says : — " The prices of iron 
have latterly fallen to such an extent that it is feared the 
revised list for labour will not meet the requirements of the 
case. Blast-furnace men will, in a day or two, receive 
5 per cent, less wages and ironworkers 6 per cent. Even 
with these concessions in their favour, masters will be 
unable to manufacture common material excepting with 
a very low margin of profit. Many of the ironmasters 
here are proprietors of coal-pits, and, in order to push 
the iron trade, they are willing at last to reduce rates for 
fuel. But the case is urgent, and they have given notice 
to the miners of an immediate revision of the wages list. 
The men are expected to make a concession of 10 per 
cent., but they are very unwilling to do so." ^ And, 
again — ^' There is great uneasiness as to the future of 
the coal trade. The masters of South Yorkshire and 
North Derbyshire, as already stated in Iron, determined 
to reduce the colliers' wages by 10 per cent. The men 
have declined to make the concession, on the ground that 

^ The Times, January- 4tli, 1875. 
^ Iron, August 4th, 1875. 



ON PRICE. 145 

' trade is more active than it ivas,^ and suggest the continu- 
ance of the present tariff of remuneration. The employers 
are now considering the matter, and the aspect of affairs 
is very serious, as they are combined, rich, and, with the 
market in a dull condition, in a position to enforce their 
notice."-^ A Barrow-in-Furness correspondent writes : — 
" The fact that at one or two of the large manufacturing 
establishments in this district makers have given notice 
of a further reduction in the earnings of their workmen 
displays the position into ivhich manufacturers have been 
driven by the gradual reduction which has been made in the 
value of iron. Prices have been reduced to the lowest 
point, and it seems imminent that if any further reduc- 
tion is effected a crisis will ensue, unless makers are 
content to work without profit." ^ 

So well known, in fact, is the effect of profits on 
wages, that the price of coal and iron has, of late years, 
come to be acknowledged as the standard by which the 
wages of those employed in the production and manu- 
facture of those commodities should be regulated, and a 
tariff of wages based on the price of iron has now been 
in existence in the iron trade for some years. 

Prof. Cairnes seems to think the wages-fund theory 
is also necessary in order to explain the Yariations 

1 Tl Til f^ 

variations m the rate of wages in different ^ate of 
countries, for he asks. How otherwise can we ^^g^ent 
account for the fact that there is one rate for countries. 

^ Iron, September 4th, 1875. 
2 jjj^^^ August 21st, 1875. 



146 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. , 

the United States, another rate for Great Britain, 
and another for the continent of Europe?^ But the 
difficulty rather is to discover what connection the 
wages-fund theory can have with the matter at issue. 
On the principle here stated the question resolves itself 
solely into one of profit. In every question of wages 
there are two parties concerned, the party demanding 
employment, and the party demanding labour. If the 
profits of any business are large, and these profits can be 
maintained and increased by the employment of more 
labour, labour will be in demand and wages will conse- 
quently rise ; if, on the other hand, profits are small, 
there wiU be little demand for labour, and wages will 
fall. Adam Smith perceived the point clearly enough 
when he said : " It is not the actual greatness of natural 
wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a 
rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly, in 
the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in 
those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages 
of labour are the highest." ^ 

If the labourers of any country are entirely depen- 
g .^j dent on wages for their subsistence, wages wiU 
causes of oreneraUv be low, but if they have other means 

variation. . . 

of subsistence, if they can employ their own 
labour with advantage to themselves, wages will generally 
be high. Wages are higher in the United States than in 



^ Some Leading Questions, part ii. cli. i. 
^ Wealth of Nations, book i. cli. viii. 



ON PKIOE. 147 

Great Britain, and higher in Great Britain than on the 
continent of Europe ; and it is to be noted that in those 
countries where they are high, profits are high also, 
while at the same time the condition of the labourer 
is far more independent than in those countries where 
wages are low. In the United States the labourers who 
are dissatisfied with the rate of wages offered them have 
the alternative of going West and taking up land ; ^ and 
in the State of California and in Australia, where wages 
are much higher than in the Eastern and Middle States, 
they have, in addition to the facilities afforded them by 
liberal land laws, the opportunity of going to the gold 
fields. The prevalence of the allotment system in 
England during the middle ages will explain how it was 
that the agricultural labouring population in this 
country were better provided, as Hallam informs us they 
were, with the means of subsistence than they are now. ^ 
From the Anglo-Saxon period to the reign of Henry VII. 
nearly the entire population of England derived their 
subsistence immediately from the soil, and every 
labourer had a small croft or parcel of land attached to 
his dweUing, with the right of turning out a cow or a few 

^ " ' Sir,' said to me a Minnesota farmer, ' the curse of this country is 
that we have too much land ; ' a phrase which I have heaxd again and 
again — among the iron-masters of Pittsburg, among the tobacco-planters 
of Eichmond, among the cotton-spinners of Worcester. Indeed, this wail 
against the land is common among men who, having mines, plantations, 
mills, and farms, would like to have large supphes of labour at lower 
rates of wages than the market yields." — New America, p. 221, 8th edition. 

2 History of the Middle Ages, iii. 372, edition 1855 ; also, Eden's State 
of the Poor, vol. i. p. 32. 



148 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

pigs or sheeiD into the woods, commons, or wastes of the 
manor. All this was changed, however, by the consoli- 
dation of small farms in the sixteenth century, and 
subsequently by the enclosure of commons and waste 
lands, which completed the process by which the 
labourer was thrown for his sole dependence on money 
wages. -^ In Great Britain and on the continent of 
Europe, on the other hand, there are, at the present 
day, no such facilities ; there are no gold mines, land is 
excessively dear, and the labourer is consequently com- 
pelled to accept the wages his employer is pleased to 
give.^ 

^ " The extent to wliicli the subdivision of the soil was at one time 
carried in England may be understood from the following illustration : — 
The occupation of the land on a farm called Holt, ia the parish of Clap, 
ham, Sussex, consistiag of 160 acres, has been traced since the thirteenth 
century up to the present time. During the thirteenth and fourteenth 
centuries this farm, which is now occupied by one tenant, was a hamlet, 
and there is a document in existence which contains twenty-one distinct 
conveyances of land in fee, described as parcels of this land. In 1400 
the number of proprietors began to decrease ; by the year 1520 it had 
been reduced to six ; in the reign of James I. the six were reduced to 
two; and soon after the Eestoration the whole became the property 
of one owner, who let it as a farm to one tenant." — Quarterly Eevieiv, 
No. 81, p. 250. 

^ " People who have at home some kind of property to apply their 
labour to, will not sell their labour for wages that do not afford them a 
better diet than potatoes and maize, although, in saving for themselves, 
they may live very much on potatoes and maize. We are often surprised, 
in travelling on the continent, to hear of a rate of day's wages very high, 
considering the abundance and cheapness of food. It is the want of neces- 
sity or inclination to take work that makes a day's labour scarce, and con- 
sequently the price of provisions is dear, in many parts of the continent, 
where property in land is widely diffused among the people." — Laing's 
Notes of a Traveller, p. 456. 



ON PKICE. 149 

The same principle which influences the rate of 
wages in various countries determines also the variations 
variations in the same country and in the same g^j^g 
trade or profession. Why do we pay high ^"^^^^y- 
wages to a good workman and low wages to a bad one ? 
Why do we give a large fee to one member of a pro- 
fession and a small one to another member of the same 
profession ? Obviously because it is profitable to do so. 
It is more profitable to give a labourer seven shillings a 
day who can remove thirty cubic yards of earth, than ^yq 
shillings per day to another who can only remove half 
that quantity. It is more profitable to give a bricklayer 
ten shillings a day who can lay two thousand bricks, than 
eight shillings a day to one who can only lay one 
thousand. It is more profitable, taking into account the 
risk at stake, for a suitor, in a case involving important 
issues, to employ a barrister of proved ability at one 
hundred guineas, than to give ten guineas to a junior 
member of the same x^i'ofession to conduct the case. 
There may be any number of briefless barristers ready 
to undertake the case at the lesser fee, but no suitor in 
his senses would entrust it to them. It is the amount of 
profit that is to be made, or, what is the same thing, 
the amount of loss that is to he avoided, that influences 
the demand for such services. 

But, apart from the wages-fund theory, the in- 
operativeness of demand and sujDply, in a Wages 
quantitative sense, upon market price, may be faterfy" 
illustrated by the case of a reserve. If a p^^^*^- 



150 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

quantity of employment is offered upon which a cer- 
tain rate is placed, and a quantity of labour is required, 
whether more or less than the quantity offered is 
immaterial, at a certain rate, and if the two rates agree, 
the result will be a contract, and the terms of this 
contract will be the price of wages. But if the reserve 
placed upon their labour by the workmen is higher 
than the employers are able to give, as employers 
will not carry on business at a loss, no contract will 
be entered into, although the workmen desire employ- 
ment and the employers desire labour. The quantities 
were present on both sides, but no price was ^xed, 
because neither side would agree to the terms offered. 
What would follow would be a dead-lock, a strike or 
a lock-out, as the case might be ; but, as there were 
no means of compelling either employers or workmen to 
accept the terms offered, the dispute could only termi- 
nate when the demand on the one side exceeded in in- 
tensity (not in quantity) the demand on the other. 
As in mechanics the strength of a work lies in its 
weakest part, so in this case the weakest part on either 
side would be that which would give way, and the 
part that would give way would be that on which the 
pressure was greatest compared with the power of 
resistance. In other words, if the necessities of a 
single workman or a single employer compelled him to 
accept the terms offered, the whole dispute would be at 
an end. So well is this understood by both employers 
and workmen, that the former always trust to the 



ON PKICE. 151 

chance of one or more workmen being driven by 
necessity to accept their terms ; and the workmen, 
when they attempt a strike, always try it on with a 
weak employer before making it general in the trade. 

Capital is also an instrument which is not trans- 
ferred or exchanged but only used. The man Capital. 
who borrows capital pays for the right to use it in the 
shape of interest, and in the shape of rent if the capital 
had been previously invested in some kind of property. 

The price of money, or the rate of interest, does 
not depend on its quantity, as even Mill . 

acknowledges,^ although somewhat inconsis- of profits to 

^ interest. 

tently, as I consider; for why should not the 
price of money be regulated in the same manner as 
the price of any other commodity? Money is subject 
to the same fluctuations as ordinary commodities, and 
its price ought to be regulated in the same way, namely, 
by demand; and demand, again, is influenced, as in 
the case of ordinary commodities, by profits. If profits 
are small, the demand will be small, and the rate of 
interest will be low; if profits are large, the demand 
will be large, and the rate of interest will be high. 

^ He says it is a great error " to imagine that tlie rate of interest 
bears any necessary relation to the quantity or value of money in 
circulation. An. increase in currency has in itself no effect, and is 
incapable of having any effect, on the rate of interest." Principles, vol. i. 
book iii. ch. xviii. 4. I am aware Mill makes a distinction between money 
when issued as currency and money when issued as loans, but the 
question does not affect my argument. 



152 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

Money in the United States is more plentiful than 
it is in England (as proved by the higher 

The price 

of money prices of Commodities and wages in the 

in hgw 

and in old former than in the latter country), and it 
conn 11 . ^^ j^Qj.Q plentiful in Australia than it is in 
the United States; but the price of money is lower 
in England than it is either in the United States or 
in Australia. The cause of the difference is in the 
demand; and it is because money can be turned to 
better account in new than in old countries, that is to 
say, because it is more useful in the former than in the 
latter, that there is a greater demand for it, that it 
commands a higher rate of interest.-^ The low rate 
of interest prevailing in Holland at the latter end of the 
seventeenth century was not due to the abundance of 
capital, although it undoubtedly was abundant enough, 
but to the absence of profitable means of investment, 
as every branch of industry had at that period been 
developed to the utmost. In France and England, 
on the other hand, the rate of interest was much 
higher'at that time than it was in Holland, for while 
money could be ordinarily had in Amsterdam, on good 
mercantile security, at 3J per cent., the merchants of 
London had to pay 6 and 7 per cent, for it, and even 
more.^ But the high rate ruling in France and England 
was not due to scarcity of money, but to the fact that 

^ See Hume's Essays, p. 177. 

^ Davis, History of Holland, iii. p. 243. Childs, Discovery of Trade, 
p. 35. 



ON PEICE. 153 

these countries were then just entering upon a new 
industrial career, and that they consequently afforded 
ample means for the profitable investment of capital.^ 

Land is another instrument of production the right 
to the use of which only is exchanged. Econo- Land, 
mists generally treat interest as different from rent, 
interest being regarded as profit on principal, rent as 
profit on monopoly.^ There is, however, no essential 
difference between them. Interest is remuneration for 
the use of principal; rent is remuneration for the use 
of principal invested in some kind of property, plus an 
allowance sufficient to keep the property in repair and 
ultimately replace it when worn out. Thus understood, 
the same principle will apply to personal as well as 
to real property — ^to steam-engines, ships, machinery, 
agricultural implements, tools of trade, or household 
furniture, all of which are let out on hire. 

Land being a monopoly, or limited in quantity, is 
on that account supposed to be different from ^^^ ^^^^ 
personal property, and rent is considered almost ^^ profits 
exclusively in connection with land. But land 
is only limited in quantity in the same way as capital or 
labour is limited, and they are all purchasable and let 
out for hire in the same way. The wages of labour, the 
interest on capital, and the rent of land, are all in- 

^ McCullocli's Essays on Economical Policy, p. 139. McCnllangh's In- 
dustrial History of Free Nations, vol. ii. p. 363. 
^ Mill, Principles, vol. i. book ii. cli. xvi. 1. 



154 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

fluenced by profits. Why does poor land pay a small 
rent, or none at all, and rich land a large rent? Ob- 
viously because the rich land yields a large profit, and 
the poor land little or none. It is profit that induces 
a tenant to give a high rent for good land and a low 
rent for bad; and it is profit that determines a land- 
owner not to let his good land for the same rent as his 
bad, as he knows he can make more out of the former 
than out of the latter by cultivating it himself. The 
land which yields no profit pays no rent, and the land 
which yields the largest profit pays the highest rent. The 
capitalist who invests his money in land, and the tenant 
who rents it, both act with a view to profit. The land- 
owner looks to his rents, the tenant to the income he can 
make out of the produce of the land during his tenancy ; 
and the amount of capital invested in a property will not 
determine the rent any more than the rent will determine 
the price that may be paid for the property. So far from 
being one of the abstrusest of subjects, as Mill repre- 
sented it to be, rent is really one of the simplest, when 
we have once understood the mode in which profit in- 
fluences demand. 



PART III. 

RELATIONS. 



( 157 ) 



CHAPTEE X. 

EELATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 

Industrial Science treats of man in Jhis industrial, 
Sociology in his social, relations. The phe- Points of 
nomena of society constitute the subject- between^ 
matter of the one science, the phenomena and^socM 
of industry the subject-matter of the other. Science. 
Both are mental sciences, inasmuch as both are con- 
cerned with mental forces as the causes of the phenomena 
which they undertake to investigate. No motives can 
be said to be exclusively industrial or exclusively social, 
but as the Egoistic group are the principal causes of in- 
dustrial phenomena and the Hemeistic of social pheno- 
mena. Industrial Science may be said to be primarily 
concerned with the former, and Sociology with the latter. 
There are many other points of agreement between 
the two sciences. Both treat of man as a member of 
society. Even the deductionist is bound to acknowledge 
the social relationship.^ It would be difficult indeed to 

* " Political Economy does not treat of the production and distribution 
of wealth in all states of mankind, but only in what is termed the social 
state." — Unsettled Questions, p. 133. 



158 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

discover how he could do otherwise, for the existence of 
property, exchange, and the division of employments, all 
imply some kind of social sanction or authority. In 
admitting so much, however, the deductionist is cer- 
tainly going outside his premisses, for, if a man is in- 
capable of being influenced by other motives than the 
desire of wealth, he must be destitute of those social 
qualities which alone can fit him to be a member of 
society. 

The hypothesis of the deductionist is also open 
Thededuc- to another objection. His ideal man would 
jjypo! ^ not only be unfit for society, but society, as 
thesis. ^^ present constituted, could not exist if his 
'ideal were realized. Society, it is true, is an aggregation 
of individuals, or units, but for that very reason there 
could be no society unless there were tendencies in each 
separate unit towards aggregation. Society, in the 
essential elements of its character, can never be different 
from the character of the units of which it is com- 
posed. To suppose so would be, as Comte pointed 
out, as great an error in sociological as it would be in 
biological reasoning were the biologist to reduce the 
body chemically into ultimate molecules which have 
no existence during life. The social affections, the 
division of functions, the sentiment of authority, and 
the idea of adjustment, must all find their counterpart 
in the social unit. No such sentiments, however, are 
permitted to exist in the ideal of the deductionist. It 
is in the family that such sentiments have their origin. 



EELATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 159 



The family is the school in which the individual is 
trained to become a member of society. It is The family 
in the family that man comes out of himself, ^^ tj^e true 
as it were, and lives in another. It is in the society. 
family that the first specialization of common functions 
takes place. It is in the family that the sentiment of 
authority and the idea of justice have their origin. The 
social affections are an expansion of the domestic affec- 
tions ; the division of functions in society is an extension 
of the principle of co-operation which takes place in the 
family • the parental authority is the basis of authority in 
the state ; and the idea of justice, as embodied in positive 
law, first finds expression in the adjustment of domestic 
relations. In primitive times, according to Sir Henry 
Maine, society did not consist of a collection of indi- 
viduals, which is the modern conception, but of an aggre- 
gation of families. Under the ancient Koman law the 
parent had absolute control over the persons and pro- 
perty of his children ; and the latter were responsible to 
the paterfamilias, and the paterfamilias was answerable 
to the state for the defects of his sons. Children were 
prohibited from holding property apart from their 
parents, and all their earnings were brought together to 
the common family stock. And this absolute control by 
the parent over the persons and property of his family 
brought with it corresponding responsibilities and duties. 
The father had to provide for the comfort and well-being 
of his children; the common fund at his disposal was 
for their use and benefit, and he had to provide them 



160 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

with the necessaries and conveniences of life in a 
manner befitting their station in society, to find them 
the means of employment, and train them to their 
duties to the state.^ The individual can only be regarded 
as a social unit when all his social faculties are fully 
developed, as they only can be in the domestic circle. 

In investigating the phenomena of industry the 
The stand- standpoint of the economist must be the same 
the^socio. ^^ ^^^^ of the sociologist ; that is to say, not 
ogist. |.j^g unit, but the aggregate of units, for society 
only resembles the unit in essential characteristics, not 
in every particular. One unit differs from another unit, 
and society consists of various groups of units more or 
less distinct. According to the extent of its relations or 
the complexity of its phenomena, society will, therefore, 
differ from any individual unit or group of units. Thus, 
what may be to the advantage of a single unit may 
not be to the advantage of the aggregate of units 
composing society. The deductionist, however, insists 
that what is good for one is equally good for all. He 
views society from the standpoint of the individual, as 
he understands him, and not from that of society at 
large. He never attempts to investigate the complex 
phenomena of society. The social organism as a whole 
is a matter that forms no part of his inquiry. He begins 
and ends with the individual. He apparently forgets 



^ Ancient Law, p. 125, 3rd edition ; see also Niebuhx's History of 
Borne, vol. i. p. 246, English translation. 



EBLATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 161 

that his ideal unit has relationship with other units, 
that these relationships may require adjustment, and 
that adjustment is only possible when 'relationships are 
viewed in the aggregate. When we speak of social or 
national interests, we mean the interests of the aggregate 
of units composing the nation, not of the representative 
.unit. When we speak of national wealth we do not 
mean the wealth of any single unit, or even a group of 
units, but the aggregate of units of which the nation is 
made up. One unit does not constitute a nation, and 
one individual, or even a group of individuals, of enor- 
mous wealth does not constitute a wealthy community. 
Great wealth may coexist with great poverty in a com- 
munity. The few may be very rich and the great mass 
very poor at the same time. The Khedive may be said to 
be the richest potentate in the world, for he owns all the 
land of Egypt, all the roads, railways, and factories, and 
has at his command the whole labour of the country; but 
no one who knows the wretched condition of the great 
mass of the people in that country would venture to say 
that Egypt is a wealthy nation. When we come to treat 
of wealth from the standpoint of society, we are brought 
face to face with the question of adjustment or distribu- 
tion, a question which is quite foreign to the premisses 
of the deductionist, but is inseparable from the con- 
sideration both of the family and of society. It is with 
the production, or rather the accumulation, of wealth 
that the deductionist really concerns himself, and not its 
distribution. The desire of wealth as the sole motive 



162 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

would exclude distribution altogether. But the distribu- 
tion and consumption of wealth belong as much to the 
phenomena of industry as production or accumulation, 
and form an integral part of Industrial Science. By 
narrowing his premisses to acquisition, or the desire of 
wealth. Mill excludes important elements from the scope 
of his inquiry. I am aware that in his principal work 
on Political Economy he includes distribution as well as 
production, though not consumption ; but in this he is 
scarcely consistent with himself. 

The closest relationship is also exhibited in the struc- 
Structure ture or organization of social and industrial life. 

of social All • T • • DP i • • "J 

and Indus- ^^ there IS a division oi lunctions m society, 
^^^ ^' so there is a division of employments in industry. 
In the earlier stages of society, and following the type of 
the family where the paterfamilias had supreme power, 
the functions of state were performed by one man. He 
was king, captain, judge, and the regulator of industry. 
In the more developed stages these various functions 
were distributed among the more capable members of the 
community, except industry, which at an early stage 
became separated from state control.-^ This separation 
took place in accordance with a natural tendency in 
society and in order that industry might ascend to the 
higher stage of the division of employments. To render 
division of employments possible, an established form 
of social order was first necessary. Plato says, indeed, 

^ Spencer, Study of Sociology, p. 61. 



EELATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 163 

that society was established for this very purpose, for 
he ascribes the origin of society to the inabihty of the 
individual man to supply his own wants." ^ Aristotle 
implies the same thing when he says that a man 
who was all- sufficient for his own wants would not 
associate with other men, and would therefore never 
become a member of society.^ Senior takes the same 
view.^ Comte goes even further, and speaks of the 
human race as being bound together by the dis- 
tribution of their occupations, and of the stability 
of society as depending on this distribution. *' Man," 
he observes, " can hardly exist in a solitary state : the 
family can exist in isolation because it can divide its 
employments, and provide for its wants in a rough kind 
of way; a spontaneous approximation of families is 
incessantly exposed to temporary ruptures, occasioned by 
the most trifling incidents. But when the regular divi- 
sion of employments has spread through any society, 
the social state begins to acquire a consistency and 
stability which place it out of danger from particular 
divergencies." * 

On the other hand, the subordination of Industrial 
to Social Science is indicated by the fact „ , .,. 
that without the sanction of society there i^ation of 

Industrial 

could be no property or wealth, and therefore to Social 

. . . Science. 

no incentive to industrial activity. No doubt 

^ Eep. ii. cli. 12. 2 Politics, i. 2. 

^ Political Economy, p. 75. 

* Positive Philosojphy, vol. ii. p. 142, Martineau's translation. ^ 



164 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

Industrial Science treats of the commercial relations of 
individuals belonging to different social organizations ; 
but such individuals must always be regarded as members 
of the community in which the transaction takes place, 
where they can sue or be sued, as the case may be. Society 
not only gives its sanction to appropriation, and thereby 
renders industry possible, but it shows a constant solici- 
tude for the object appropriated. The division of em- 
ployments necessitates exchange, but there could be no 
exchange, or, at all events, exchange would be of a very 
restricted kind, if the state did not enforce contracts, or 
if it permitted agreements to be broken with impunity. 
This shows the inseparable connection that exists be- 
tween Industrial and Social Science. 

The application of these principles to Industrial 
Science will be obvious. The social sympathies are de- 
veloped through the domestic affections. The sympathies 
of the individual expand into the family, and from thence 
into society. Like the force of gravitation, which 
acts inversely as the square of the distance, the 
social sympathies are strong or weak in proportion to 
the nearness or remoteness of the objects. We have 
greater affection for a near relative than for a stranger ; 
we love our own family more than the particular set 
with which we associate, our set more than our order, 
and our order more than society at large. 

The Hemeistic or social force is as necessary to 
industrial life as the Egoistic or personal is to social 
life. The man who cares only for himself would be as 



EELATION TO SOCIOLOGY. 165 

unfit for industrial pursuits as the man who cares 
only for others would be for society. Both 

The sphere 

forces being necessary, and both being antago- of social 
nistic, there conies the question of adjustment, trial 
"We have already seen how injuriously self- 
interest operates when left to itself. The effects of the 
Egoistic force will, however, be counteracted by the 
Hemeistic. Sympathy will modify selfishness. The 
social affections will operate as a check upon the egoism 
of our nature. They will restrain us from doing an 
injury to others. They will prevent us from seeking 
our own interest at the expense of our neighbours. They 
will incite us to acts of benevolence. It is to our sym- 
pathetic affections that we owe our charitable institutions, 
our hospitals, free schools, and our poor laws. The 
social affections also take the objective form of public 
opinion, which becomes a sort of unwritten law, im- 
posing its obligations on all classes of society. Praise 
or dispraise is a powerful incentive to, or restraint 
upon, action. No one cares to do what public opinion 
pronounces to be mean, unneighbourly, improper, or 
contemptible : every one likes to enjoy the good opinion 
of those with whom he is daily brought into contact, 
and the respect and esteem of his fellow men. 



166 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTEE XI. 



RELATION TO ETHICS. 



We have seen that the self-regarding motives require the 
Insuffi. aid of the social affections. We shall now en- 
thTHeme- cleavour to show that the social affections 
istic forces, require the aid of the Ethical Sentiment. With 
individuals of an unsocial disposition, or those who 
have little respect for public opinion, the social affec- 
tions will fail. They will also fail in the case of 
those who, though they have a certain respect for 
public opinion, nevertheless think they may avoid its 
censure for their wrong-doings by escaping detection. 

The calicoes made in Lancashire for the China and 
The Lan- Indian market are known to be of a most in- 
cottoT ferior quality. The poorer classes in those 
spinners, countries for whom such goods are intended 
prefer a stiff material, because they believe it indicates 
strength and durability; and to meet this demand the 
Lancashire manufacturers, as we have said, supply an 
article largely adulterated with flour and china clay. 
The material looks well to the eye of the uninitiated. 



EELATION TO ETHICS. 167 

but the first shower of rain washes out the paste and 
clay, and the fraudulent nature of the goods is at 
once exposed. The fear of losing the trade, or what is 
called enlightened self-interest, has not as yet induced 
the Lancashire manufacturers to betake themselves to 
a more honest way of making a living. The subject of 
adulteration has more than once been discussed before 
the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, but no reso- 
lution condemnatory of the practice has been carried. 
So long as the present trade is profitable, why should 
they trouble themselves about the future ? The manu- 
facturers probably make more money in one year by 
selling adulterated goods than they would in ten by 
selling more honest productions. 'They may believe 
that they will lose the trade ultimately, in the same way 
that the French lost the cloth trade in the Levant in 
1837 by similar practices,-^ but that will not influence 
their conduct in the slightest degree so long as they 
can secure handsome fortunes in the meantime. Self- 
interest, therefore, is in favour of the existing system, 
and the social influences that might operate as a check 
upon it are all absent in the present instance. The 
manufacturers never come in contact with their real cus- 
tomers, the people who buy these goods to wear, and the 
verdict of public opinion in the East, however loudly 
expressed, would have little or no effect upon the manu- 
facturers living in England. The only public opinion 

1 Say, Political Economy, vol. i. cli. xvii. 



168 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

that would be likely to influence them would be that 
which finds expression in their own immediate neigh- 
bourhood and in their own trade, and that is all in 
their favour. In such a case as this, therefore, the 
social affections fail to have any beneficial operation. 

In the home trade the social affections fail for a 
Manufac- somewhat similar reason. Here, as a rule, 

turers and i?i ni- tj tit 

middle- ^ manuiacturer sells his goods to wholesale 
^^^' houses or middlemen. The middlemen are his 

real customers, and between these and the consumers come 
the retailers, or what is called the trade. The middle- 
men command the market, for they have the retailers 
in their hands to a great extent. This naturally gives 
them immense influence with the manufacturers, who 
generally make to order such goods as they require, 
in other words, such as they can easily sell at a 
handsome profit. It is to the middlemen that most 
of the modern trade frauds are due. They induce 
the manufacturers to make a certain standard article 
of an inferior quality, or put it up in packages short 
of the usual weight or measurement, "warranted," 
at the same time, to contain more than they actually 
do ; and as they get the manufacturers to make a cor- 
responding allowance in price, the difference is all clear 
gain to them, or they share the spoil with the trade. 
A striking illustration of the working of this system is 
given by Mr. Eobert Dale Owen. " When my father," 
he says, " left me manager of the New Lanark cotton- 
mills, in the winter of 1824-25, a certain Mr. Bartholo- 



KELATION TO ETHICS. 169 

mew, who had long been a customer of ours to the extent 
of twenty-five or thirty thousand dollars a year, came to 
me one day, asking if I could make him a lot of yarn 
suitable for ordinary shirting at such a price, naming it. 
' We have but one price,' I said, ' and you know well that 
we sell such yarn 20 per cent, above the rate you 
propose. ^I know that,' he replied; 'but you could 
make it, so as to be sold at my price.' ' Yes, by using 
waste and mixing in short-stapled cotton.' 'And it 
would look almost as well ? ' ' Perhaps.' ' Then I'll 
risk it.' ' My father's instructions,' I repHed, ' are 
not to lower the quality of our goods. I'm sorry ; but 
I can't fill your order.' He went off in a huff, but 
returned two days later. 'See here,' he said, 'don't 
be Quixotic. I can have the yarn I asked you about 
spun elsewhere. What's the use of driving a good 
customer from you? I shall get the stuff I want, and 
use it, all the same.' ' It would injure the character 
of our mill.' 'Not if you leave off your trade mark. 
What do I care about the picture ? Mark it as you 
will.' I hesitated, and finally — not much to my credit 
— agreed to make the yarn for him. I had it marked 
with a large B. 'It will stand either for Bartholomew 
or for bad,' I said to him when he came to look at it. 
* I'm ashamed to turn such an article out of our mill.' 
But three weeks later he came again. ' Just the thing ! ' 
he said ; and he gave me a second order, thrice as large 
as the first. The B yarn became a popular article in 
the market, the shirting that was made from it looking 



170 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

smooth, and being sold at some 10 per cent, less than 
that made from our usual quality. Yet, to my certain 
knowledge — for I tried it — it did not last half as long 
as the other. That transaction sits somewhat heavily 
on my conscience still. Yet it helped to teach me a great 
lesson. It is my firm belief that, at the present time, 
purchasers of cotton, woollen, linen, and silk goods, of 
furniture, hardware, leather goods, and all other manu- 
factured staples, lose, on the average, because of inferior 
quality, more than half of all the money they pay out." 

In such a case as this the manufacturer never comes 
in contact with the consumers. He never incurs their 
censure, for the trade mark of his firm is removed. His 
transactions are with men of the Bartholomew type 
who take good care to keep their trade secrets to 
themselves. He simply supplies an article which is ^'in 
demand," as the phrase goes, and he flatters himself that 
there is no deception on his part. If asked about it, 
he would say that the transaction was perfectly straight- 
forward. He simply supplied an existing demand ; this 
and nothing more. The demand, however, was a fraudu- 
lent one, it was supplied with a fraudulent intent, and the 
consumers were robbed to the extent of the difference 
in the price between the fraudulent article and the 
genuine one. 

Of course there can be no objection in principle to 
the law of Correlative Demand so long as the demanders 
deal equitably the one with the other, and when the 
contest is not between wants and desires, but between 



RELATION TO ETHICS. 171 

desires and desires, and between wants and wants. Nor 
can there be any objection to the principle of Com- 
petition jper se, which is simply an assertion of a right 
to use to one's own advantage the opportunities which 
circumstances place within one's reach. But it is mani- 
festly objectionable when we exercise that right to the 
disadvantage of others. 

The ancient Greek writers considered Ethics, Social 
Science or Politics, and what they called yiqw^ of 
Economics, as inseparable. In their estimation ^^^*° ^^^ 

■^ Aristotle. 

these were not distinct sciences, but only 
branches of the one master science. This master 
science, according to Plato, was Ethics, and accordingly 
he commences his Republic with a discussion on the 
subject of Justice, which he regarded as the root of all 
the virtues and the basis of all good government. "With 
Aristotle, on the other hand, Politics was the master 
science, because it appropriated all the other sciences to 
itself.^ Ethics he considered as the common basis of 
both Economics and Politics, and Economics he regarded 
as anterior in point of time to Politics as the oIkoq, 
or family, existed prior to the TroX^c, or state. ^ But 
however much these writers differed in this respect, they 
both agreed in regarding the whole group of moral 
sciences as interdependent and radically one. 

Modern writers on Ethics and Sociology also acknow- 

^ Ethics, book i. cli. ii. 3, 4. Aristotle regarded Politics chieflj as 
an art. 

^ Economics, book i. ch. i. 



172 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

ledge to the fullest extent the interdependence of the 
moral sciences. They do not pretend to such exactitude 
in their prevision of phenomena as the economist, or 
attempt to draw definite lines of demarcation between 
ethical, social, and economic forces. The moralist 
does not say, this is an ethical force, that a social, 
and that an industrial force, and exclude the latter 
Industry altogether from his consideration. The socio- 

based on , . , t , -, ■, j- ii 

the ethical logist does not proceed by separatmg the 
sentiment, g^^^g^j from the ethical and industrial forces, 
and confine himself strictly to the former. It is only 
the economist who believes in the doctrine of isolation. 
He boldly takes his stand on Egoism,. pure and simple, 
and insists on rigorously excluding the Hemeistic and 
AUostic forces. A little consideration will show, how- 
ever, that the very foundations of Industrial Science rest 
on the Ethical Sentiment. 

It will not be disputed that industry is based on 
Origin of property. "Without property, public or private, 
property, j^-^q-^q could be no such thing as wealth, and 
therefore no incentive to production. The desire to 
appropriate is the primal force of human industry. 
But this desire, if unrestrained, would only lead to per- 
petual strife. Each individual would seek to appropriate 
the appropriations of others as the readiest way of 
satisfying his desire. No one could be sure of retaining 
what he had, however acquired, and society, if it existed 
at all, would be in a continual state of warfare. In order 
that this desire may find satisfaction, and at the same 



RELATION TO ETHICS. 173 

time that the existence of society be rendered possible, 
property was sanctioned. And its existence is solely due 
to the Ethical Sentiment. Property is a Eight. It is 
the moral judgment that sanctions its appropriation. 
The source of this sanction is in man himself, not in 
the object appropriated. The conflicting claims of in- 
dividual competitors are adjusted on the ground of equity 
or justice. The right to hold involves the right to 
acquire, and as soon as the mind grasped the idea that 
it was right that the man should retain what he had 
acquired, the existence of property was possible and not 
before. 

Or we might put the matter in another way. To 
enjoy without labour is the natural inclination of every 
man. But the world is so constituted that man 
cannot enjoy without labour, either on the part of 
himself or of some one else on his behalf. To procure 
even the necessaries of life requires the expenditure of 
human effort, more or less. But no one would care to 
exert himself unless he were assured that he would enjoy 
the profits of his exertion. What a man produces or 
creates he has a right or moral claim to appropriate to 
his own use. 

Appropriation, in the first instance, was no doubt 
effected by the tribe. In the earliest stages of society 
the members of a tribe took possession of a certain 
area of land which they occupied as their hunting 
ground, and which they held in common against all 
comers. But even in the rudest state of society the 



174 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

individual was not wholly absorbed in the tribe. Dif- 
ferent individuals have different degrees of capacity, 
and if an individual, while doing his full share of labour 
in providing for the common wants did something be- 
yond this, justice demanded that he, and not another, 
should enjoy the fruits of his labour. Hence the origin 
of private property. Appropriation, public or private, 
sanctioned by justice, thus became the basis of the 
whole industrial system. 

The Ethical Sentiment is also the basis of contract. 
Origin of ^ coutract, to be valid, must be made with a 
contract. ^^y[ knowledge of what it involves ; must be 
voluntary ; and there must be an adequate considera- 
tion. What does all this mean if it is not another 
way of saying that a contract to be valid must, in its 
nature, be equitable and just ? 

The moral element is, indeed, absolutely essential to 
The industry. It is the foundation on which the 

sentiment whole industrial system rests. There would be 
necessary. ^^ production unless the producer had the 
assurance that he would enjoy the fruits of his labour. 
The division of employment would not be possible unless 
the labourer believed that he would obtain a fair price 
for his products or an adequate remuneration for his 
services. Commerce could not be carried on unless the 
contracting parties had faith in each other's honesty, for 
honesty on the part of the agents is implied in every 
act of exchange. Honesty, in fact, is an essential 
attribute of every industrial action. When a man buys 



KELATION TO ETHICS. 175 

anything he mentally asks, Has the seller come honestly 
by it ? is the article what it is represented to be ? is the 
price asked for it a fair one ? And it is only when affirm- 
ative answers are given to these questions which the 
intending purchaser puts to himself that any transaction 
takes place. The moral element is no doubt an em- 
barrassing one for the deductionist to deal with, but if it 
is essential, its elimination is worse than useless — it is 
mischievous. 

Industrial Science is intimately related to Ethics on 
the one hand, and to Social Science on the Eeiation 
other. But it is subordinate to Social Science triaUo^" 
as the latter is again subordinate to Ethics. EtMcLf''^ 
Social Science is the key-stone of the arch of Science, 
which Ethics is the foundation. It is the Social 
Sanction that gives expression and force to the Ethical 
Sentiment, and it is to the Ethical Sentiment that we 
owe the ideas of property and contract. There could 
be no contract without exchange, no exchange without 
property, or something to exchange, and there could 
be no property unless society sanctioned appropriation. 
Thus Ethics, Sociology, and Industrial Science are not 
separate and independent, but inseparable and inter- 
dependent sciences, each being necessary to the other, 
each forming a part of one whole Science of Man. 



176 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 



CHAPTEE XII. 

RELATION TO ART. 

The difference between science and art may be explained 
Science ^ ^ ^®^ words. Science investigates, art 
and art. applies. Science deals with what is, art with 
what should be. Science treats of phenomena, and the 
causes or forces which produce them ; art employs these 
forces to produce phenomena of the same or of a differ- 
ent kind, according to the aim of the artist. 

As there is an art and a science of ethics, and an art 
The art of and a science of society, so there is an art and 

legisla- 
tion, a science of industry. The art of industry is 

Industrial Legislation. Positive law stands in the same 
relation to natural law that art does to science. Like true 
art, wise legislation is based on scientific law. The 
legislator makes use of the facts of Industrial Science, 
but he does not confine himself to these ; he also uses 
the materials furnished him by the moralist and socio- 
logist, in the same way as the navigator does with the 
facts of astronomy and geometry, as the agriculturist 
with those of chemistry, physiology, and botany, or 



EELATION TO AET. 177 

as the doctor with those of anatomy, physiology, and 
pathology. 

The Art of Political Economy is entirely ignored by 
the modern school of economists, but not be- indus. 
caiise they modestly believe that the facts of i^ored 
their science are not sufficiently established p 5!!?^®?^^ 
to be made available for the purposes of art, Economy, 
but because they think its principles, or laws, as they are 
pleased to call them, are naturally adapted to every con- 
dition of economic existence. What in other departments 
of knowledge would be termed rules of art, are with them 
designated scientific laws. They have laws for everything, 
but whether they are laws in the strictly scientific sense 
may be a matter of dispute. We hear of the Laws of 
Production, the Laws of Demand and Supply, the Laws 
of Value, the Laws of Price, even the Laws of Free Trade, 
and how many more beside it would be difficult to say, 
for the bare enumeration of them would fill a good-sized 
volume. But the great majority of these so-called laws 
are mere truisms. Even the fundamental maxim of this 
school, that mankind desire to obtain the greatest 
amount of wealth with the least expenditure of labour or 
self-sacrifice, is a mere truism, on a par with such 
maxims as these, that a man will choose the greater of 
two goods, that of two evils he will choose the lesser, or 
that of two roads to the same place he will take the 
shortest. All these and similar platitudes imply nothing 
more than average intelligence on the part of the agents. 
We have seen that Industrial Science has to deal 

N 



178 INDUSTRIAL SCIENCE. 

with mental forces. The laws of the science will there- 
Mental fore be formulated statements of the modes 
nomena ^^ which these forces operate. Mental forces 
oTpre-^^^ are of two kinds, psychological and moral. 
vision. ijij^jQ \a,ws of psychological forces are few and 
simple. They are those of Contiguity, of Similarity, 
and of Compound Association. But of the moral laws, 
the laws of human action, what do we really know 
about them ? We know, indeed, that mankind act from 
motives, and we can enumerate many of such motives, 
and we know generally the kind of actions which certain 
motives influence. We know also that some motives 
are more powerful than others, judging by their effects ; 
that the Hemeistic, for instance, are stronger than the 
AUostic, and that the Egoistic are stronger than either ; 
but motives vary in strength, or, what amounts to the 
same thing, the receptiveness of the agent varies with 
times and circumstances, so that the same motive which 
will determine action at one time, or under one set of 
conditions, will not at another time, or under another 
set of conditions. If we take a given motive and isolate 
it from all others, we may certainly be able to ascer- 
tain approximately how the agent will act under its in- 
fluence. We say '' approximately " only, for as we can 
never know the strength of a motive but by its results, so 
we can never previse its precise operation. But in actual 
life a motive is never isolated in this way. There are 
always several motives operating concurrently on the 
mind, some of which determine action and others not. 



EELATION TO AET. 179 

and we can never tell beforehand wliich will prevail. 
We can never measure the strength of a motive quantita- 
tively, and we can therefore never previse its effect on 
the volition. No doubt when several motives have the 
same general tendency we may be able to tell pretty 
accurately the result, just as we can in the case of 
an isolated motive ; but when they are in conflict we can 
never predicate which will get the mastery, and even if 
we could, we cannot tell the exact amount of deflection 
which may result from the subjected motives. A man is 
both hungry and fatigued at the same time. The one 
state predisposes him to exertion, the other to rest, and 
the result will prove whether the desire to eat or the 
desire to rest was the stronger motive and which the 
weaker, and possibly also the influence of the latter on 
the former ; but it would have been impossible to previse 
the result. Even if we are to take a purely hedonistic 
view of human nature we would still be no nearer pre- 
vision, as pains and pleasures are presented to the 
human mind in such a variety of aspects that it can 
never be said, absolutely, that mankind always act 
so as to avert the one or secure the greatest amount of 
the other. 

It does not follow, however, that because there can 
be no prevision there can be no science. We But it 
cannot previse geological phenomena, and yet it fo°iiow° 
will not be disputed that there is a Science of ^®^Y^ ^° 
Geology. The various processes of upheaval, Science. 
denudation, and subsidence, take place according to 



180 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

certain general laws which are more or less understood, 
but we cannot foretell their effects, as they vary ac- 
cording to the nature and strength of the subterranean 
forces which cannot be measured quantitatively. Even 
in Biology and Psychology, as Mr. Herbert Spencer has 
observed, the previsions are, most of them, only qualifica- 
tive, and even when they are quantitative, their quantita- 
tiveness can only be ascertained approximately. ^ In 
Psychology, Ethics, Sociology, and Industrial Science, 
the phenomena are only qualificative, and are therefore 
altogether incapable of exact prevision. 

Nothing but exact prevision will, however, satisfy the 
Thededuc- deductionists. With them. Political Economy is 
inXt on ^^ exact scieucc or it is nothing ; and in order 
prevision. ^^ make it exact they isolate it from the other 
moral sciences. They adopt an arbitrary conception of 
man, assume him to be impelled by a single motive, 
and then they proceed to explain how he must 
necessarily act under its influence. And no sooner have 
they adopted this assumption than they proceed to 
dogmatize upon it as if it were no assumption at all. 
They make believe, in fact, that they have not assumed 
anything, and present their deductions as if they were 
absolute, incontrovertible truths, and all this they do 
with such an air of infallibility as would be ridiculous 
were it not mischievous. 

But this only leads them further astray. So satisfied 

^ Sociology, p. 45. 



EELATION TO AKT. 181 

are they with the manner in which they have elaborated 
their system, that they have come to beheve Laissez 
in its absolute perfectibility. So admirably *^"*^^' 
adapted, in their opinion, are the laws of their science 
to meet every industrial requirement, that they imagine 
nothing more is necessary than that they should be left 
to their free operation. Borrowing a shibboleth from 
certain French traders, they preach henceforth the 
gospel of laissez fair e. To make any attempt to promote 
industry, either directly or indirectly, was naturally 
enough regarded by the commercial mind in Colbert's 
day as an interference with vested interests ; but by the 
economist of the modern English school such an attempt 
is looked upon as nothing less than a gross violation of 
the first principles of economic law, an unwarrantable 
outrage on the established order of nature. "Free ex- 
change," we are told by one of that school, "between 
man and man — or, what is the same thing, free trade 
■ — is action in accordance with the teachings of nature. 
Protection, on the other hand, is an attempt to make 
things better than nature made them." ^ To all such 
objections I would only reply that it is the function of 
art to improve upon nature, or, to use the words of 
Polixenes to Perdita — 

" This is an art 
Whicli does mend nature, — change it rather : but • 
The art itself is nature." 

^ Mr. David Wells in The Atlantic Monthly for August, 1875. 



182 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

The gardener mends nature when he gives variety of 
tone and colour to the landscape. The agriculturist 
mends nature when he drains his land, when he adds 
any ingredients to the soil to increase its fertility, and 
when he improves the quality of his seed or his breed of 
live stock. In the same manner a legislature mends 
nature when it passes a measure for the removal of 
nuisances which are injurious to health, promotes 
education, or provides for the administration of justice. 
Every act of administration on the part of the state 
is an interference with nature : every positive law is 
an interference with natural law. Is there anything 
peculiarly sacred about industry that it should be 
looked upon as sacrilege to lay hands on it ? The 
question does not require a moment's serious considera- 
tion. The dogma of laissezfaire, if applied to social life, 
would be the negation of all law. 

The state ever has interfered, and we venture to say, 
State 6ver will interfere with industry, for the simple 

ference ^eason that it cannot help doing so. For what 
necessary. p-Q^pose, if not in the interests of industry, 
does the state protect property, enforce contracts, and 
punish fraud? If we examine the statute books of 
any civilized people, we shall find the greater portion of 
them occupied with laws which, either directly or indi- 
rectly, affect trade. Indeed, the number of laws of this 
description in any country is a certain criterion of its 
industrial development. In the earlier stages of society, 
when industry was of the rudest kind, the number of 



EELATION TO AKT. 183 

laws relating to trade were few and simple. According 
to Sir Henry Maine, the only form of dishonesty treated 
of in the most ancient Eoman law was theft ; ^ but as 
trade extended the opportunities for fraud were in- 
creased, and the laws for its repression were increased in 
proportion. The history of the acts passed by our own 
legislature shows very clearly that legislation followed 
crime, and crime followed industry. Laws relating to 
the tenure and transfer of land occupied an early place 
in the statute book, for land is generally the first thing 
appropriated. With the development of trade there 
followed the laws relating to guilds and ajDprenticeships ; 
as competition increased between people in the same 
occupation, bringing in its train new kinds of fraud, 
we have laws for the suppression of adulteration and 
against the use of light weights and short measures; 
as commerce extended, we have laws for regulating 
shipping, banks, insurance companies, and institutions 
of a like character ; and with the introduction of 
the factory system we have laws innumerable for the 
regulation of the hours of labour, and generally for the 
protection of women and young persons in factories. 

But while art mends, it also follows nature. It not 
only works in accordance with nature's law, but ^ . , 

♦^ Legisla- 

it follows nature's method. Nature does not ti^eart 

follows 

lay down a law and expect it to be observed as nature's 
a matter of course. She attaches a penalty to 

^ Ancient Law, p. 307. 



184 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

the breach of it, and so presents a motive for its obser- 
vance. If I put my finger over a flame, I suffer pain ; 
if I go without food, I feel hungry ; if I eat or drink too 
much, I have an uneasy sensation of repletion. The 
penalty attached to the breach of a law acts as a deter- 
rent. The legislator follow nature's method in this 
respect. He attaches a penalty to every breach of the 
law in order to ensure its observance, and this acts as a 
deterrent on the human mind. A good or a bad action 
is performed because there is a motive for its per- 
formance. To prevent the performance of a bad action, 
a stronger counteracting motive must be supplied. A 
man may have a strong motive to steal, but if the 
penalty for stealing be imprisonment with hard labour 
for a term of years, this will usually form a stronger 
motive than the desire to appropriate, and will there- 
fore counteract it. 

Art has to do with ends and means. Not only must 
the legislator have a proper obiect in view in 

Ends and ^ r r J 

means of franimg a law, but he must take the proper 

art. 

means to attain that object. The means at 
his command are motives which must be capable of 
influencing the human mind. If adequate motives are 
presented, the law wiU be successful in its operation ; if 
inadequate, it will fail. All that science demands of 
art is the presentation of adequate motives. 

Is it desirable, from an individual point of view, that 
Social ^ certain act should be performed ? Then the 
ends. individual should perform it. Is it desirable, 



KELATION TO AET. 185 

from a social point of view, that a certain act should be 
performed ? Then the state should perform it. It would 
be absurd to expect society to do for the individual what 
is chiefly for the individual's advantage ; and it would be 
equally absurd to expect the individual to do for society 
what is chiefly for the interest of society. If society 
has no ends in view, then social organization will be 
reduced to a nullity; if it has ends, then it must take 
the proper means to accomplish those ends. 

What is good for aU, and not merely for an individual 
or a class, should be undertaken by the state ; gociai 
what benefits only the few should be left to ^^^'''• 
private enterprise. Is it good for the whole community 
that there should be ships and commerce ? Then the 
state should make harbours and build lighthouses. Is 
it good for the whole community that there should be 
intercommunication between the various parts of the 
country? Then the state should make roads or build 
railways, or sanction and promote their being made. 
Is it good for the whole community that the population 
should be fully employed and adequately remunerated ? 
Then it may be necessary for the state to promote, by 
such means as it has in its power, the growth of manu- 
factures. This is rank heresy, I know, but the fact that 
it is so will not invalidate my argument in the slightest 
degree. The interests of the individual are sometimes 
antagonistic to, more often identical with, those of 
society, but they can never be coextensive with them. 
The individual is not expected to sacrifice himself for 



186 INDUSTEIAL SCIENCE. 

the benefit of society, but it is expected of society, as it 
is of the individual, that it will look after its own inte- 
rests. The principle laid down by Mill, that state inter- 
ference is justifiable when important public services are 
to be performed which there is no individual specially 
interested in performing, nor any adequate remunera- 
tion which would naturally or spontaneously attend their 
performance, holds good in all cases.-^ 

Mill makes the pregnant remark that ''the supe- 
riority of one country over another in a 
of Indus- branch oi production oiten arises only irom 
^rmiac" Slaving begun it sooner."^ To give a country 
this start may, under certain circumstances, 
be a public benefit, and therefore a public duty. To do 
so no doubt may entail a little temporary self-sacrifice 
on the part of the public, but this should not be con- 
sidered a very serious objection. Success in anjrfching 
is always attended with more or less sacrifice at the 
start. We must plant a tree before we can enjoy its 
fruit ; we must build our houses before we can live in 
them. This kind of sacrifice is entailed on individuals 
equally with society. To establish a business, some 
expenditure of time, labour, and money is required; to 
learn a trade, one must serve a long apprenticeship ; to 
acquire a profession, a youth must not only give years of 
service gratuitously, but often a bonus as well. The 
same principle is acted on by corporations as well as 

^ Princijples, vol. ii. book v. ch.. xi. 15. 
^ Hid, vol. ii. book v. eh. x. 1. 



EELATION TO AET. 187 

by individuals. The inhabitants of a district believe that 
the establishment of a certain branch of manufacture 
would be beneficial to them, and they offer certain 
advantages to capitalists to embark in the enterprise — 
just as was done by the citizens of Amsterdam with 
the view of inducing the employers and artisans of Aix 
to settle in their city — and no one doubts the propriety 
of the proceeding. The ratepayers of a town want a 
good harbour, and they impose a temporary rate on 
themselves for the purpose of raising the necessary 
funds — in the same way as the ratepayers of Greenock 
did in order to secure the West India sugar trade — and 
they are everywhere applauded for their energy and 
enterprise. Why should that which is proper for the 
individual or corporation to do, be improper for the 
state ? 

By the modern school of economists it is considered 
a wise policy to import commodities from Buying 
those places where they can be purchased cheapest 
cheapest. But why should it not be considered ^^^^^t. 
an equally wise policy to have commodities produced in 
those places where the cost of production would be 
least ? Why should we not ascertain the countries 
where the raw material can be obtained most abun- 
dantly, and carry thither our capital and labour ; ^ or, 
having the raw material in abundance, why not import 
the labour to manufacture it? It was in this manner 

^ This view is put by Mill as an argument in favour of state-assisted 
emigration. — Principles, vol. ii. book v. ch. xi. 14. 



188 INDUSTKIAL SCIENCE. 

that England established her woollen manufactures. 
Instead of exporting her raw wool, and reimporting 
it again when manufactured, she kept her wool and 
imported skilled workmen from Holland to make it into 
cloth. 

The Economists insist that the individual is the 
Society ^i^st judge of his own interests. The dictum 
*iidot^o£ ^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^ ^^^ disposed to dispute. On 
its own j^]jQ contrary, I accept it without the slightest 

interests. "^ ^ ^ 

hesitation. All that I insist upon is that the 
principle should have a more general application, and 
that society should, in respect to ability of judging as 
to its own interests, be put upon the same footing as 
the individual. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



A. 

Adulteration, old Englisli laws against, 79 ; modern public opinion 

on, 80 (n.) ; openly tolerated and defended, 83, 84 ; of calico, 166 ; 

Manchester Chamber of Commerce on, 167. 
Adjustment, the idea of, 161. 
Appropriation, first efiected by the tribe, 173. 
Arbitration. See Courts of. 
Aristotle, his views on social organization, 162 ; on the relationship of 

the moral sciences, 171. 
Art, as distinguished from science, 176 ; of legislation, 176 ; of Pohtical 

Economy, 177 ; the functions of, 181 ; its relation to nature, 181 ; 

follows nature's method, 183 ; ends and means of, 184 ; what nature 

demands of, 184. 
Ashburner, Mr., on adulteration, 84. 
Auction, sale by, 65. 
Australia, sale of land in, 65, 66. 
Auvergne, division of employments in, 18, 19 (n.). 



B. 

Bagehot, Mr., on fluctuations in the money-market, 132. 

Bain, Mr., on the reality of moral distinctions, 45. 

Bombay Chamber of Commerce and the new Indian tariff, 76; on 

adulteration, 84, 85. 
Bombay Gazette, The, on the new Indian tariff, 75 (n.) . 
Brassey, Mr., on Hindoo workmen, 108. 



190 IKDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

C. 

Cairnes, Prof., his views on the subject-matter of Political Economy, 9 ; 
on method, 14 ; on the relation of Political Economy to abstract 
justice, 54 ; on competition, 58 (n.) ; on value, 115 ; on the wages- 
fund theory, 138, 145. 

Calcutta Englishman, The, on the new Indian tariff, 74. 

Calico, the adulteration of, 166. 

Capital, how affected by demand and supply, 52, and competition, 60 ; 
an instrument of production, 136 ; the right to use only exchanged, 
151. 

Chalmers, Dr., on the distinction between necessaries and luxuries, 49. 

Competition, wherein it differs from demand and supply, 35 ; follows 
from the dogma of the sufficiency of self-interest, 55; the object of, 
56 ; is merely j)rovisionary, 57 ; the tendency of, 58 ; conditions 
necessary to annihilate, 59 ; between rival companies, 61 ; amongst 
the London Gas Companies, 62 ; national, 67 ; in the economic and 
organic world, 91 ; not objectionable per se, 170. 

Comte, A., his views on social organization, 162. 

Contract, the origin of, 174. 

Correlative demand, what is meant by, 87 ; not objectionable in prin- 
ciple, 170. 

Courts of Arbitration, the true solution of the wages question, 42. 

D. 

Deduction. See Method. 

Demand, meaning of the term, 86, 125, 127 ; Mill's explanation of, 125 ; 
Prof. Jenkins's definition, 125 (n.). See also Correlative Demand. 

Demand and Supply, as distinguished from competition, 35 ; its mode of 
operation, 38 ; ignores moral distinctions, 38 ; its effects in seasons 
of scarcity, 40, 41, 47, 49 ; and on capital and labour, 52,- in relation 
to quantity, 137, and to profits,. 148. 

Desires, different from wants, 38 ; illustrated by the case of the Orissa 
famine, 40, by wages disputes, 41 ; are of secondary importance as 
industrial forces, 109. 

Difficulty of attainment, not an essential condition of value, 118 ; subor- 
dinate to utility, 120 ; relation to price, 126, 138, and to demand, 
137. 

E. 

Economy, meaning of the word, 4; how used by Aristotle and Xenophon, 

4 ; its modern acceptation, 4. 
Effectual Demand, what it is, 36, 37. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 191 

England, the commercial policy of, 67, 68, 69, 70 ; subdivision of land 

in, 148. 
Essay on Goveriivment, Macaulay's attack on, 21. 
Ethics, in relation to Political Economy, 92, 93, 94, 166, 174, and Social 

Science, 175 ; the basis of exchange, 175. 
Exchange- Yalue, what it is, 122, 123. Bee Yalne. 
Exports, character of British, 88. 



F. 

Food, price of, in relation to wages, 51, 52. 

Force, a, different from a law, 102. 

Forces, different kinds of industrial, 103 ; classification of, 105 ; relative 
importance of, 107 ; the Egoistic, 107 ; the Hemeistic, 111 ; the 
Allostic, 113 ; the sphere of the various, 165 ; what we know of 
mental, 178. 

Froude, Mr., on the Irish trade, 70. 



a. 

GoscHEN, Mr., on out-door relief, 47. 



H. 

Hall AM, Mr., on the condition of agricultural labourers in the Middle 
Ages, 149. 

Hops, the effects of the removal of duties on, 80 (w.). 

Humboldt, on the banana, 108. 

Hypothesis, what is essential to an, 17 ; Mill's, 15, admitted to be in- 
adequate, 24 J the deductionists', 158. 



I. 

Induction. Bee Method. 

Industrial Science, a branch of the science of man, 1 ; meaning of the 
term, 3, 4 ; the phenomena of, 2, 3, 11 ; definition of, 12 ; experi- 
ments in, 28, 29; its relation to Social Science, 157, 175, and 
subordination to the latter, 163 ; the idea of adjustment inseparable 
from, 161. 

Industrial forces. Bee Forces. 

Interest, how affected by profits, 151. 

Iron, the price of, 142. 

Iron and coal trades, 141. 



192 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 

J. 

Jenkins, Prof., his definition of demand and supply, 125 (n.). 
Justice, the principle of Political Economy not in accordance with our 
ideas of, 53, 54. 

L. 

Labotje, the price of, affected by demand and supply, 52 ; and by com- 
petition, 60 ; an instrument of production, 136 ; natural disinclina- 
tion of man to, 173. 

Laissez faire, 181, 182. 

Land, an instrument of production, 136 ; effect of the wide distribution 
of, 149 ; subdivision of, in England, 148. 

Legislation, the art of, 176 ; follows crime, 183. 

Leslie, Prof. Cliff e, on the division of employments, 18 (n.). 

London Gas Companies, 62. 

M. 

Maine, Sir Henry, on early society, 159. 

Malthus, Mr., on the habits of the working classes, 109. 

Manchester Chamber of Commerce on adulteration, 84, 167- 

Manufacturers and middlemen, 168. 

Manufactures, State promotion of, 185 ; what Amsterdam and Greenock 
did for, 187 ; how England established her woollen, 188. 

Manufacturing supremacy, how England maintains her, 69, 70. 

Method, Adam Smith's, 13 ; Mill's, 15 ; the deductive unsuitable, 27 ; 
why the inductive is to be preferred, 28; especially applicable to 
the moral sciences, 29 ; in Social Science, 100 ; and in Ethics, 100 ; 
nature's, 183. 

Middlemen and manufacturers, 168. 

Mill's, James, method in Politics, 21 (n.). 

Mill, J. S., on the subject-matter of Political Economy, 8 ; inconsistency 
of his views on method, 15, and examination of, 17; his single- 
motive theory, 23 ; on competition, 65 (n.) ; on value, 115 ; on 
demand and supply, 125; on wages, 136; on the wages-fund 
theory, 137 ; on State interference with trade, 186 ; on State- 
assisted emigration, 187. 

Milne, Mr., the case of, 50. 

Money, in old and in new countries, 152 ; the causes of variations in 
the price of, 152. 

Motives, various, 27 ; isolation of, 100, 172, 178 ; how they act, 102 ; 
why called forces, 104 ; classification of, 106 ; conflict of, 179. 

Moral Sciences, interdependence of the, 171. 

Moral Sentiments, Adam Smith's method in, 95. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 193 



Natuee, its relation to art, 181 ; art follows the metliod of, 183 ; what it 

demands of art, 184. 
Needlewomen, the case of the London, 46, 47 (n.). 
New South Wales, sale by auction in, 66. 



O. 

Opinion, influence of on price, 133. 

Organization, social, 162 ; Plato and Aristotle' s views on, 162. 

Orissa, the famine in, 39 (u.). 

Owen, E. Dale, the case cited by, 168. 

P. 

Phenomena, of Industrial Science, 2, 3, 11 j mental incapable of pre- 
vision, 178. 

Plato, on social organization, 162 ; on the relationship of the moral 
sciences, 171. 

Political Economy, meaning of the term, 4; its use misleading, 4, 6; 
various definitions of, 5 ; is not a physical science, 7, but a mental, 
10; the laws of, 34; the principles of, not in accordance with 
abstract justice, 53, 54 ; the art of, 177 ; the so-called laws of, 177. 

Politics, James Mill's method of, 21 (n.). 

Prevision, inapplicable to moral science, 178 ; insisted on by the deduc 
tionists, 180. 

Price, is exchange value, 122 ; is relative, not absolute, 122 ; difference 
between it and value, 123 ; how determined, 124 ; demand and 
supply in relation to, 125, 134 ; influence of opinion on, 133 j of 
money, 152. 

Prices, variations in, 19. 

Profits, difierent rates of, 19 ; relation to wages, 141, 149 ; how they 
affect interest, 151 ; influence of on rent, 153. 

Property, its origin, 172 ; is a right, 173. 

Q. 

Quantitativeness. 8ee Difficulty of Attainment. 

E. 
Eent, what it is, 153 ; influenced by profits, 153. 

O 



194 INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 



S. 

ScAECiTY, how demand and supply operates in seasons of, 40, 41, 47, 49. 

See Difi&cnlty of Attainment. 
Science, distinguished from art, 176 ; of man, 1, 2. 
Self-interest, alleged sufficiency of, 31 ; the dogma of not in accordance 

with man's nature, 33, nor with facts, 34 ; enlightened, 45 j con- 
trasted with sympathy, 95. 
Senior, Mr., his method, 13 ; his definition of value, 121 ; on social 

organization, 162. 
Smith, Adam, his method in The Wealth of Nations, 13, 95, in Moral 

Bentiments, 95. 
Society, what it is, 158 ; the unit of, 159; early, 159 ; the best judge of 

its own interests, 188. 
Sociologists, the stand-poiut of, 160. 
Sociology, its relation to industrial science, 157, 175. 
Spencer, Mr. Herbert, on the morals of trade, 64, 81, 82 ; on prevision 

in moral science, 180. 
Spitalfields weavers, the case of, 46. 

State interference, the necessity of, 182 ; Mill's views on, 186. 
Subject-matter of Political Economy, 7 ; Mill's view of, 8 ; Caimes's view 

of, 9. 
Supply, definition of the term, 125, 127. 
Sympathy, contrasted with self-interest, 95. 



T. 



Tariff, the new Indian, 70, 71. 
Tremenheere, on English competition, 69. 



U. 

Utility, relation of to difficulty of attainment, 120, and to value, 121. 

V. 

Value, in use and in exchange, 115 ; various definitions of, 115 j dif- 
ficulty of attainment in relation to, 118 ; essential character of, 
119 ; definition of, 121 ; absolute not relative, 122 ; distinguished 
from price, 123. 



INDEX OF SUBJECTS. 195 



Wages, different rates of, 19, tlie causes of these, 20, 21, 146-151 ; 
disputes about, 41, and failure of all attempts to settle, 42 ; how 
affected by demand and supply, 43 ; low rates of, injurious, 44 ; and 
the price of provisions, 48, 51; not paid out of capital, 139; 
relation of profits to, 141, 149. 

"Wages-fund theory, Mill and Cairnes on, 137, 138 ; based on erroneous 
assumptions, 138. 

Walker, Prof., on the tendency of economic forces, 54 (ji.). 

Wallace, Mr. A. E., on the sago tree, 108. 

Wants, distinguished from desires, 38; effect of a conflict between, 39; 
an enumeration of, 107. 

Warehousemen and Drapers' Journal, on the importation of American 
calico, 86 {n."). 

Wealth, meaning of the term, 5 ; its use misleading, 6 ; not the subject- 
matter of Political Economy, 7 ; its relation to Industrial Science, 
11 ; a means to an end, 17 ; the theory of the maximum of, 
examined, 18, 22. 

Wealth of Nations, The, Adam Smith's method in, 13, 95. 

Wilson, Mr. James, and the Indian cotton duties, 71. 

Wheat, the price of, 49. 

Whewell, Dr., aphorisms for the use of technical terms, 6 (u.). 



CAXTON PRINTING WORKS, BECCLES. 



CATALOGUE 

PRAPnCAl AND scum BOOKS, 



^'UEXjIShehd B^y 



HEI ET CAEET BAIED & CO, 

Indnstrial Publishers and Booksellers, 
NO. 810 ^SATALNUT STREET, 



miL^OELFHIA.. 



4®* Any of the Books comprised in this Catalogne will be sent by mail, free of 
postage, at the publication price. 

■<®* A Descriptive Catalogne, 96 pages, 8vo., will be sent, free of postage, to any 
one who will furnish the publisher with his addressi 



ARLOT.— A Complete Guide for Coach Painters. 

Translated from the French of M. Arlot, Coach Painter ; for eleven 
years Foreman of Painting to M. Eherler, Coach Maker, Paris. By 
A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. To which is added an Ap- 
pendix, containing Information respecting the Materials and the 
Practice of Coach and Car Painting and Varnishing in the United 
States and Great Britain. 12mo $1.25 

ARMEWGAUD, AMOROUX, and JOHNSON.— The 
Practical Draughtsman's Book of Industrial De- 
sign, and Machinist's and Engineer's Drawing 
Companion : 

Forming a Complete Course of Mechanical Engineering and Archi- 
tectural Drawing. From the French of M. Armengaud the elder, Prof, 
of Design in the Conservatoire of Arts and Industry, Paris, and MM. 
Armengaud the younger, and Amoroux, Civil Engineers. Rewritten 
and arranged with additional matter and plates, selections from and 
examples of the most useful and generally emploved mechanism of 
the day. By William Johnson, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Editor of " The 
Practical Mechanic's Journal." Illustrated by 50 folio steel plates, 
and 50 wood-cuts. A new edition, 4to. .... $10.00 

1 



2 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

ARROWSMITH.— Paper-Hanger's Companion : 

A Treatise in which the Practical Operations of the Trade are Sys- 
tematically laid down : with Copious Directions Preparatory to Paper- 
ing; Preventives against the Effect of Damp on Walls ; the Various 
Cements and Pastes Adapted to the Several Purposes of the Trade ; 
Observations and Directions for the Panelling and Ornamenting of 
Rooms, etc. By James Akrowsmith, Author of "Analysis of Dra- 
pery," etc. 12mo., cloth. $1.25 

ASHTON.— The Theory and Practice of the Art of De- 
signing Fancy Cotton and Woollen Cloths from 
Sample : 

Giving full Instructions for Reducing Drafts, as well as the Methods 
of Spooling and Making out Harness for Cross Drafts, and Finding 
any Required Reed, with Calculations and Tables of Yarn. By 
Feedeeick T. Ashton, Designer, West Pittsfield, Mass. With 52 
Illustrations. One volume, 4to $10.00 

BAIRD.— Letters on the Crisis, the Currency and the 
Credit System. 
By Henry Caeey Baird. Pamphlet. ..... 05 

BAIBD. — ^Protection of Home Labor and Home Pro- 
ductions necessary to the Prosperity of the Ameri- 
can Parmer. 

By Heney Caeey Baied. 8vo., paper 10 

BAIRD.— Some of the Fallacies of British Free-Trade 
Revenue Reform. 

Two Letters to Arthur Latham Perry, Professor of History and Politi- 
cal Economy in Williams College. By Heney Caeey Baied. 
Pamphlet 05 

BAIRD.— The Rights of American Producers, and the 
Wrongs of British Free-Trade Revenue Reform. 
By Heney Carey Baied. Pamphlet 05 

BAIRD.— Standard Wages Computing Tables : 

An Improvement in all former Methods of Computation, so arranged 

that wages for days, hours, or fractions of hours, at a specified rate per 

day or hour, may be ascertained at a glance. By T. Spanglee Baird. 

. Oblong folio. . . . . . . . . . . 15.00 

BAIRD.— The American Cotton Spinner, and Mana- 
ger's and Carder's Guide : 

A Practical Treatise on Cotton Spinning ; giving the Dimensions and 
Speed of Machinery, Draught and Twist Calculations, etc. ; with 
notices of recent Improvements : together with Rules and Examples 
for making changes in the sizes and numbers of Roving and Yarn. 
Compiled from the papers of the late Robert H. Baird. 12mo. $1.50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 3 

BAKER.— Long-Span Railway Bridges : 

Comprising Iiive.rtigatious of the Cotuparative Theoretical and Prac- 
tical Advantages of the various Adopted or Proposed Type Systems 
of Construction ; with numerous Formulte and Tables. By B. Baker. 
12mo $2.00 

BAXJERMAN.— A Treatise on the Metallurgy of Iron : 

Containing Outlines of the History of Iron Manufacture, Methods of 
Assay, and Analysis of Iron Ores, Processes of Manufacture of Iron 
and Steel, etc., etc. By H. Baueeman, F. G. S., Associate of the 
Royal School of Mines. First American Edition, Revised and En- 
larged. With an Appendix on the Martin Process for Making Steel, 
from the Report of Abram S. Hewitt, U. S. Commissioner to the 
Universal Exposition at Paris, 1867. Illustrated. 12mo. . $2.00 

BEANS.— A Treatise on Railway Curves and the Loca- 
tion of Railways. 
By E. W. Beans, C. E. Illustrated. 12mo. Tucks. . . $1.50 

BELL.— Carpentry Made Easy : 

Or, The Science and Art of Framing on a New and Improved System. 
With Specific Instructions for Building Balloon Frames, Barn Frames, 
Mill Frames, Warehouses, Church Spires, etc. Comprising also a 
System of Bridge Building, with Bills, Estimates of Cost, and valuable 
Tables. Illustrated by 38 plates, comprising nearly 200 figures. By 
William E. Bell, Architect and Practical Builder. 8vo. . $5.00 

BELL.— Chemical Phenomena of Iron Smelting : 

An Experimental and Practical Examination of the Circumstances 
which determine the Capacity of the Blast Furnace, the Temperature 
of the Air, and the proper Condition of the Materials to be operated 
upon. By I. LowTHiAN Bell. Illustrated. 8vo. . . $6.00 

BEMROSE.— Manual of Wood Carving : 

With Practical Illustrations for Learners of the Art, and Original and 
Selected Designs. By William Bemrose, Jr. With an Introduction 
by Llewellyn Jewitt, F. S. A., etc. With 128 Illustrations. 4to., 
cloth. ........... $3.00 

BICKNELL.— Village Builder, and Supplement : 

Elevations and Plans for Cottages, Villas, Suburban Residences, 
Farm Houses, Stables and Carriage Houses. Store Fronts, School 
Houses, Churches, Court Houses, and a model Jail ; also, Exterior and 
Interior details for Public and Private Buildings, witli approved 
Forms of Contracts and Specifications, including Prices of Building 
Materials and Labor at Boston, Mass., and St. Louis, Mo. Containing 
75 plates drawn to scale ; showing the style and cost of building in 
diiferent sections of the country, being an original work comprising 
the designs of twenty leading architects, representing the New Eng- 
land, Middle, Western, and Southwestern States. 4to. . $12.00 



4 HENKY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

BLENKARN. — Practical Specifications of Works exe- 
cuted in Architecture, Civil and Mechanical Engi- 
neering, and in Road Making and Sewering : 

To which are added a series of practically useful Agreements and Re- 
ports. By John Blenkarn. Illustrated by 15 large folding plates. 
8vo $9.00 

JBLINN. — A Practical Workshop Companion for Tin, 
Sheet-Iron, and Copperplate Workers : 

Containing Rules for describing various kinds of Patterns used by 
Tin, Sheet-Iron, and Copper-plate Workers ; Practical Geometry ; 
Mensuration of Surfaces and Solids ; Tables of the Weights of Metals, 
Lead Pipe, etc. ; Tables of Areas and Circumferences of Circles ; 
Japan, Varnishes, Lackers, Cements, Compositions, etc., etc. By 
Leeoy J. Blinn, Master Mechanic. With over 100 Illustrations. 
12mo $2,50 

BOOTH.— Marble Worker's Manual: 

Containing Practical Information respecting Marbles in general, their 
Cutting, Working, and Polishing ; Veneering of Marble ; Mosaics ; 
Composition and Use of Artificial Marble, Stuccos, Cements, Receipts, 
Secrets, etc., etc. Translated from the French by M. L. BOOTH. 
With an Aj^pendix concerning American Marbles. 12mo., cloth. $1.50 

BOOTH AND MORFIT.— The Encyclopedia of Che- 
mistry, Practical and Theoretical : 

Embracing its application to the Arts, Metallurgy, Mineralogy, Ge- 
ology, Medicine, and Pharmacy. By James C. Booth, Melter and 
Refiner in the United States Mint, Professor of Apjilied Chemistry in 
the Franklin Institute, etc., assisted by Campbell Morfit, author 
of " Chemical Manipulations," etc. Seventh edition. Royal 8vo., 
978 pages, with numerous wood-cuts and other illustrations. . $5.00 

BOX.— A Practical Treatise on Heat: 

As applied to the Useful Arts ; for the Use of Engineers, Architects, 
etc. By Thomas Box, author of " Practical Hydraulics." Illustrated 
by 14 plates containing 114 figures. 12mo $4.25 

BOX.— Practical Hydraulics : 

A Series of Rules and . Tables for the use of Engineers, etc. By 
Thomas Box. l2mo. . $2.50 

BROWN.— Five Hundred and Seven Mechanical 
Movements : 

Embracing all those which are most important in Dynamics, Hydrau- 
lics, Hydrostatics, Pneumatics, Steam Engines, Mill and other Gear- 
ing, Presses, Horology, and Miscellaneous Machinery ; and including 
many movements never before published, and several of which have 
only recently come into use. By Henry T. Brown, Editor of the 
" American Artisan." In one volume, 12mo. . . . $1.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 5 

BUCKMASTER.— The Elements of Mechanical Phy- 
sics : 

By- J. C. BucKMASTEE, late Student in the Government School of 
Mines ; Certified Teacher of Science by the Department of Science 
and Art ; Examiner in Chemistry and Physics in the Royal College 
of Preceptors ; and late Lecturer in Chemistry and Physics of the 
Royal- Polytechnic Institute. Illustrated with numerous engravings. 
In one volume, 12mo $1.50 

BULLOCK.— The American Cottage Builder : 

A Series of Designs, Plans, and Specifications, from $200 to $20,000, 
for Homes for the People; together with Warming, Ventilation, 
Drainage, Painting, and Landscape Gardening. By John Bullock, 
Architect, Civil Engineer, Mechanician, and Editor of *' The Rudi- 
ments of Architecture and Building," etc., etc. Illustrated by 75 en- 
gravings. In one volume, 8vo $3.50 

BULLOCK. — The Rudiments of Architecture and 
Building : 

For the use of Architects, Builders, Draughtsmen, Machinists, Engi- 
neers, and Mechanics. Edited by John Bullock, author of " The 
American Cottage Builder." Illustrated by 250 engravings. In one 
volume, 8vo $3.50 

BURGH.— Practical Illustrations of Land and Marine 
Engines : 

Showing in detail the Modern Improvements of High and Low Pres- 
sure, Surface Condensation, and Super-heating, together with Land 
and Marine Boilers. By N. P. Burgh, Engineer. Illustrated by 
20 plates, double elephant folio, with text . . . . $21.00 

BURGH. — Practical Rules for the Proportions Ox Mo- 
dern Engines and Boilers for Land and Marine 
Purposes. 

By N. P. Burgh, Engineer. 12mo $1.50 

BURGH.— The Slide-Valve Practically Considered. 

By N. P. Burgh, Engineer. Completely illustrated. 12mo. $2.00 

BYLES.— Sophisms of Free Trade and Popular Politi- 
cal Economy Examined. 

By a Barrister (Sir John Barnard Byles, Judge of Common 
Pleas). First American from the Ninth English Edition, as published 
by the Manchester Reciprocity Association. In one volume, 12mo. 
Paper, 75 cts. Cloth $1.25 

'PYRN.— The Complete Practical Brewer : 

Or Plain, Accurate, and Thorough Instructions in the Art of Brewing 
Beer, Ale, Porter, including the Process of making Bavarian Beer, 
all the Small Beers, such as Root-beer, Ginger-pop, Sarsaparilla- 
beer, Mead, Spruce Beer, etc., etc. Adapted to the use of Public 
Brewers and Private Families. By M. La Fayette Byrn, M . D. 
With illustrations. 12mo $1.25 



6 HENRY CAREY BAIED'S CATALOGUE. 

BYRN.— The Complete Practical Distiller : 

Comprising the most perfect and exact Theoretical and Practical De- 
scription of the Art of Distillation and Rectification ; including all of 
the most recent improvements in distilling apparatus; instructions 
for preparing spirits from the numei'ous vegetables, fruits, etc. ; direc- 
tions for the distillation and preparation of all kinds of brandies and 
other spirits, spirituous and other compounds, etc., etc. By M. La 
Fayette Byen, M. D. Eighth Edition. To which are added. Prac- 
tical Directions for Distilling, from the French of Th. Fling, Brewer 
and Distiller. 12mo $1.50 

BYRNE. — Handbook for the Artisan, Mechanic, and 
Engineer : 

Comprising the Grinding and Sharpening of Cutting Tools, Abrasive 
Processes, Lapidary Work, Gem and Glass Engraving, Varnishing 
and Lackering, Apparatus, Materials and Processes for Grinding and 
Polishing, etc. By Oliver Byrne. Illustrated by 185 wood en- 
gravings. In one volume, 8vo $5.00 

BYRNE.— Pocket Book for Railroad and Civil Engi- 
neers : 

Containing New, Exact, and Concise Methods for I aying out Rail- 
road Curves, Switches, Frog Angles, and Crossings; the Staking 
out of work ; Levelling ; the Calculation of Cuttings ; Embankments ; 
Earth-work, etc. By Oliver Byrne. ISmo., full bound, pocket- 
book form . . $1.75 

BYRNE.— The Practical Model Calculator : 

For the Engineer, Mechanic, Manufacturer of Engine Work, Naval 
Architect, Miner, and Millwright. By Oliver Byrne. 1 volume, 
8vo., nearly 600 pages . $4.50 

BYRNE.— The Practical Metal-Worker's Assistant: 

Comprising Metallurgie Chemistry ; the Arts of Working all Metals 
and Alloys; Forging of Iron and Steel; Hardening and Tempering; 
Melting and Mixing; Casting and Founding; Works in Sheet Metal; 
The Processes Dependent on the Ductility of the Metals ; Soldering ; 
and the most Improved Processes and Tools employed by Metal- 
workers. With the Application of the Art of Electro-Metallurgy to 
Manufacturing Processes ; collected from Original Sources, and from 
the Works of HoltzapiFel, Bergeron, Leupold, Plumier, Napier, 
Scoffern, Clay, Fairbairn, and others. By Oliver Byrne. A new, 
revised, and improved edition, to which is added An Appendix, con- 
taining The Manufacture of Russian Sheet-Iron. By John 
Percy, M. D., F.R.S. The Manufacture of Malleable Iron 
Castings, and Improvements in Bessemer Steel. By A. A. 
Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. With over 600 Engravings, illus- 
trating every Branch of the Subject. 8vo $7.00 

Cabinet Maker's Album of Furniture : 

Comprising a Collection of Designs for Furniture. Illustrated by 48 
Large and Beautifully Engraved Plates. In one vol., oblong $5.00 



HENRY CAEEY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 7 

CALLINGHAM.— Sign Writing and Glass Emboss- 
ing: 

A Complete Practical Illustrated Manual of the Art. By James 
Callingham. In one volume, 12mo $1.50 

CAMPIN. — A Practical Treatise on Mechanical Engi- 
neering : 

Comprising Metallui-gy, Moulding, Casting, Forging, Tools, Work- 
shop Machinery, Mechanical Manipulation, Manufacture of Steam- 
engines, etc., etc. With an Appendix on the Analysis of Iron and 
Iron Ores. By FRANCIS Campin, C. E. To which are added. Obser- 
vations on the Construction of Steam Boilers, and Bemarks upon 
Furnaces used for Smoke Prevention ; with a Chapter on Explosions. 
By R. Armstrong, C. E., and John Bourne. Rules for Calculating 
the Change Wheels for Screws on a Turning Lathe, and for a Wheel- 
cutting Machine. By J. La Nicca. Management of Steel, Includ- 
ing Forging, Hardening, Tempering, Annealing, Shrinking, and Ex- 
pansion. And the Case-hardening of Iron. By G. Ede. 8vo. Illus- 
trated with 29 plates and 100 wood engravings . . . $6.00 

CAMPIN.— The Practice of Hand-Turning in Wood, 
Ivory, Shell, etc. : 

With Instructions for Turning such works in Metal as may be re- 
quired in the Practice of Turning Wood, Ivory, etc. Also, an Appen- 
dix on Ornamental Turning. By FRANCIS Campin ; with Numerous 
Illustrations. 12mo., cloth $3.00 

CAREY.— The Works of Henry C. Carey : 

FINANCIAL CRISES, their Causes and Effects. 8vo. paper . 25 

HARMONY OF INTERESTS: Agricultural, Manufacturing, and 
Commercial. 8vo., cloth $1.50 

MANUAL OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. Condensed from Carey's " Prin- 
ciples of Social Science." By Kate McKean. 1 vol. 12mo. $2.25 

MISCELLANEOUS WORKS : comprising " Harmony of Interests," 
" Money," " Letters to the President," " Financial Crises," " The 
Way to Outdo England Without Fighting Her," "Resources of 
the Union," " The Public Debt," " Contraction or Expansion ? " 
" Review of the Decade 1857-67," " Reconstruction," etc., etc. 
Two vols., 8vo., cloth $10.00 

PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. 8vo $2.50 

PRINCIPLES OF SOCIAL SCIENCE. 3 vols., 8vo., cloth $10.00 

THE SLAVE-TRADE, DOMESTIC AND FOREIGN ; Why it Ex- 
ists, and How it may be Extinguished (1853). 8vo., cloth . $2.00 

LETTERS ON INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT (1867) . 50 

THE UNITY OF LAW : As Exhibited in the Relations of Physical, 

Social, Mental, and Moral Science (1872). In one volume, 8vo., 

pp. xxiii., 433. Cloth $3.50 

CHAPMAW. — A Treatise on ftopemaking : 

As Practised in private and public Rope yards, with a Description 
of the Manufacture, Rules, Tables of Weights, etc., adapted to the 
Trades, Shipping, Mining, Railways, Builders, etc. By Robert 
Chapman. 24mo , . . $1.50 



8 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

COLBUKN. — The Locomotive Engine : 

Including a Description of its Structure, Rules for Estimating its Capa- 
bilities, and Practical Observations on its Construction and Manage- 
ment. By Zekah Colbuen. Illustrated. A new edition. 12mo. $1.25 

CRAIK. — The Practical American Millwright and 
Miller. 
By David Craik, Millwright. Illustrated by numerous wood en- 
gravings, and two folding plates. 8vo $5.00 

DE GRAFF.— The Geometrical Stair Builders' Guide : 

Being a Plain Practical System of Hand-Railing, embracing all its 
necessary Details, and Geometrically Illustrated by 22 Steel JEngrav- 
ings ; together with the use of the most approved principles of Prac- 
tical Geometry. By SiMON De Geaff, Architect. 4to. . $5.00 

DE KONINCK.— DIETZ.— A Practical Manual of Che- 
mical Analysis and Assaying : 

As applied to the Manufacture of Iron from its Ores, and to Cast Iron, 
Wrought Iron, and Steel, as found in Commerce. By L. L, De Kon- 
INCK, Dr. Sc, and E. DiETZ, Engineer. Edited with Notes, by Robeet 
Mallet, F.R.S., F.S.G., M.I.C.E., etc. American Edition, Edited 
with Notes and an Appendix on Iron Ores, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist 
and Engineer. One volume, 12mo. $2.50 

DUNCAN. — Practical Surveyor's Guide: 

Containing the necessary information to make any person, of common 
capacity, a finished land surveyor without the aid of a teacher. By 
Andeew Duncan. Illustrated. 12mo., cloth. . . . $1.25 

DUPLAIS.— A Treatise on the Manufacture and Dis- 
tillation of Alcoholic Liquors : 

Comprising Accurate and Complete Details in Regard to Alcohol from 
Wine, Molasses, Beets, Grain, Rice, Potatoes, Sorghum, Asphodel, 
Fruits, etc. ; with the Distillation and Rectification of Brandy, Whis- 
key, Rum, Gin, Swiss. Absinthe, etc., the Preparation of Aromatic Wa- 
ters, Volatile Oils or Essences, Sugars, Syrups, Aromatic Tinctures, 
Liqueurs, Cordial Wines, Effervescing Wines, etc., the Aging of Brandy 
and the Improvement of Spirits, with Copious Directio; s and Tables 
for Testing and Reducing Spirituous Liquors, etc., etc. Translated 
and Edited from the French of MM. DUPLAIS, Aine et Jeune. By 
M. McKennie, M.D. To which are added the United States Internal 
Revenue Regulations for the Assessment and Collection of Taxes on 
Distilled Spirits. Illustrated by fourteen folding plates and several 
wood engravings. 743 pp., 8vo . $10.00 

DUSSAUCE. — A General Treatise on the Manufacture 
of Every Description of Soap : 

Comprising the Chemistry of tke Art, with Remarks on Alkalies, Sa- 
ponifiable Fatty Bodies, the apparatus necessary in a Soap Factory, 
Practical Instructions in the manufacture of the various kinds of Soap,, 
the assay of Soaps, etc., etc. Edited from Notes of Larme, Fontenelle, 
Malapayre, Dufour, and others, with large and important additions by 
Prof. H. Dussauce, Chemist. Illustrated. In one vol., 8vo. . $10.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 9 



DUSSAUCE.— A General Treatise on the Manufacture 
of Vinegar : 

Theoretical and Practical. Comprising the various Methods, by the 
Slow and the Quick Processes, with Alcohol, Wine, Grain, Malt, Cider, 
Molasses, and Beets ; as well as the Fabrication of Wood Vinegar etc' 
etc. By Prof. H. Dussauce. In one volume, 8vo. . . $5.00 

JDUSSAUCE.— A New and Complete Treatise on the 
Arts of Tanning, Currying, and Leather Dressing : 

Comprising all the Discoveries and Improvements made in France, 
Great Britain, and the United States. Edited from Notes and Docu- 
ments of Messrs. Sallerou, Grouvelle, Duval, Dessables, Labarraque, 
Payen, Rene, De Fontenelle, Malapeyre, etc., etc. By Prof. H. Dus- 
sauce, Chemist. Illustrated by 212 wood engravings. 8vo. $25.00 

PUSSAUCE.— A Practical Guide for the Perfumer : 

Being a New Treatise on Perfumery, the most favorable to the Beauty 
without being injurious to the Health, comprising a Description of the 
substances used in Perfumery, the Formulse of more than 1000 Prepa- 
rations, such as Cosmetics, Perfumed Oils, Tooth Powders, Waters, 
Extracts, Tinctures, Infusions, Spirits, Vinaigres, Essential Oils, Pas- 
tels, Creams, Soaps, and many new Hygienic Products not hitherto 
described. Edited from Notes and Documents of Messrs. Debay, Lb- 
nel,etc. With additions by Prof. H. Dussauce, Chemist. 12mo. $3.00 

DUSSAUCE. — Practical Treatise on the Fabrication 
of Matches, Gun Cotton, and Fulminating Powders. 

By Prof. H. DusSAUCE. 12mo $3.00 

Dyer and Color-maker's Companion: 

Containing upwards of 200 Receipts for making Colors, on the most 
approved principles, for all the various styles and fabrics now in exist- 
ence ; with the Scouring Process, and plain Directions for Prej)aring, 
Washing-off, and Finishing the Goods. In one vol., 12mo. . $1.25 

EASTON.— A Practical Treatise on Street or Horse- 
power Railways. 

Bv Alexander Easton, C. E. Illustrated by 23 plates. 8vo., 
cloth $2.00 

ELDER.— Questions of the Day : 

Economic and Social. By Dr. William Elder. 8vo. . $3.00 

FAIRBAIRN.— The Principles of Mechanism and Ma- 
chinery of Transmission : 

Comprising the Principles of Mechanism, Wheels, and Pulleys, 
Strength and Proportions of Shafts, Coupling of Shafts, and Engaging 
and Disengaging Gear. By Sir William Fairbairn, C.E., LL.D., 
F.R.S., F.G.S. Beautifully illustrated by over 150 wood-cuts. In 
one volume, 12mo $2.50 

FORSYTH.— Book of Designs for Headstones, Mural, 
and other Monuments : 

Containing 78 Designs. By James Forsyth. With an Introduction 
by Charles Boutell, M. A. 4to,, cloth $5.00 



10 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

GIBSON. — The American Dyer: 

A Practical Treatise on the Coloring of Wool, Cotton, Yarn and 
Cloth, in three parts. Part First gives a descriptive account of the 
Dye Stuffs ; if of vegetable origin, where produced, how cultivated, 
and how prepared for use ; if chemical, their composition, specific 
gravities, and general adaptability, how adulterated, and how to de- 
tect the adulterations, etc. Part Second is devoted to the Coloring of 
Wool, giving recipes for one hundred and twenty-nine different colors 
or shades, and is supplied with sixty colored samples of Wool. Part 
Third ia devoted to the Coloring of Raw Cotton or Cotton Waste, for 
mixing with Wool Colors in the Manufacture of all kinds of Fabrics, 
gives recipes for thirty-eight different colors or shades, and is supplied 
with twenty -four colored samples of Cotton Waste. Also, recipes for 
Coloring Beavers, Doeskins, and Flannels, with remarks upon Ani- 
lines, giving recipes for fifteen different colors or shades, and nine 
samples of Aniline Colors that will stand both the Fulling and Scour- 
ing process. Also, recipes for Aniline Colors on Cotton Thread, and 
recipes for Common Colors on Cotton Yarns. Embracing in all over 
two hundred recipes for Colors and Shades, and ninety-four samples 
of Colored Wool and Cotton Waste, etc. By Richakd H. Gibson, 
Practical Dyer and Chemist. In one volume, 8vo. . . $12.50 

GILBART.— History and Principles of Banking : 

A Practical Treatise. By James W. Gilbaet, late Manager of the 
London and Westminster Bank. With additions. In one volume, 
8vo., 600 pages, sheep . ' $5.00 

Gothic Album for Cabinet Makers : 

Comprising a Collection of Designs for Gothic Furniture. Illustrated 
by 23 large and beautifully engraved plates. Oblong . . $3.00 

GRANT. — Beet-root Sugar and Cultivation of the 
Beet. 

By E. B. Geant. 12mo $1.25 

GREGORY.— Mathematics for Practical Men : 

Adapted to the Pursuits of Surveyors, Architects, Mechanics, and 
Civil Engineers. By Olinthus Gregory. 8vo., plates, cloth $3.0(1 

GRISWOLD.— Railroad Engineer's Pocket Compan- 
ion for the Field : 

Comprising Rules for Calculating Deflection Distances and Angles, 
Tangential Distances and Angles, and all Necessary Tables for Engi- 
neers ; also the art of Levelling from Preliminary Survey to the Con- 
struction of Railroads, intended Expressly for the Young Engineer, 
together with Numerous Valuable Rules and Examples. By W. 
Griswold. 12mo., tucks $1.75 

GRUNER.— Studies of Blast Furnace Phenomena. 

By M. L. Gruner, President of the General Council of Mines of 
France, and lately Professor o# Metallurgy at the Ecole des Mines. 
Translated, with the Author's sanction, with an Appendix, by L. D. B. 
Gordon, F.R.S.E.. F. as. Illustrated. 8vo. . . . $2.50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. H 

GXJETTIER.— Metallic Alloys : 

Being a Practical Guide to their Chemical and Physical Properties, 
their Preparation, Composition, and Uses. Translated from the 
French of A. Guettiee, Engineer and Director of Foundries, author 
of "La Fouderie en France," etc., etc. By A. A. Fesquet, Chemist 
and Engineer. In one volume, 12mo $3.00 

HARRIS. — Gas Superintendent's Pocket Companion. 

By Harris & Brother, Gas Meter Manufacturers, 1115 and 1117 
Cherry Street, Philadelphia. Full bound in pocket-book form $2.00 

Hats and Felting: 

A Practical Treatise on their Manufacture. By a Practical Hatter. 
Illustrated by Drawings of Machinery, etc. 8vo. . . . $1.25 

HOFMANK". — A Practical Treatise on the Manufac- 
ture of Paper in all its Branches. 

By Carl Hofmann. Late Superintendent of paper mills in Ger- 
many and the United States ; recently manager of the Public Ledger 
Paper Mills, near Elkton, Md. Illustrated by 110 wood engravings, 
and five large folding plates. In one volume, 4to., cloth; 398 
pages $15.00 

HUGHES. — American Miller and Millwright's Assist- 
ant. 

By Wm. Carter Htjghes. A new edition. In one vol., 12mo. $1.50 

HURST.— A Hand-Book for Architectural Surveyors 
and others engaged in Building: 

Containing Formulae useful in Designing Builder's work. Table of 
Weights, of the materials used in Building, Memoranda connected 
with Builders' work. Mensuration, the Practice of Builders' Measure- 
ment, Contracts of Labor, Valuation of Property, Summary of the 
Practice in Dilapidation, etc., etc. By J. F. HiiRST, C. E. Second 
edition, pocket-book form, full bound $2.50 

JERVIS.— Railway Property : 

A Treatise on the Construction and Management of Railways ; de- 
signed to afford useful knowledge, in the popular style, to the holders 
of this class of property ; as well as Railway Managers, Officers, and 
Agents. By John B. Jervis, late Chief Engineer of the Hudson 
River Railroad, Croton Aqueduct, etc. In one vol., 12mo., cloth $2.00 

JOHNSTON".— Instructions for the Analysis of Soils, 
Limestones, and Manures. 

By J. F. W. Johnston. 12mo . 38 



12 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

KEENE.-— A Hand-Book of Practical Gauging ; 

For the Use of Beginners, to which is added, A Chapter on Distilla. 
tion, describing tlie process in operation at the Custom House for 
ascertaining the strengtli of wines. By James B. Keene, of II. M. 
Customs. 8vo $1.25 

KELLEY. — Speeches, Addresses, and Letters on In- 
dustrial and Financial Questions. 
By Hon. William D. Kelley, M. C. In one volume, 544 pages, 
8vo $5.00 

KENTISH.— A Treatise on a Box of Instruments, 

And the Slide Rule ; with the Theory of Trigonometry and Loga- 
rithms, including Practical Geometry, Surveying, Measuring of Tim. 
her, Cask and Malt Gauging, Heights, and "Distances. By Thomas 
Kentish. In one volume. 12mo. $1.25 

KOBELL.—EBNI.— Mineralogy Simplified : 

A ishort Method of Determining and Classifying Minerals, by means 
of simple Chemical Experiments in the Wet Way. Translated from 
the last German Edition of F. VoN KobelI;, with an Introduction to 
Blow-pipe Analysis and other additions. By Henei Erni, M. D., 
late Chief Chemist, Department of Agriculture, author of " Coal Oil 
and Petroleum." In one volume, 12mo. .... $2.50 

IjANDRIN.— A Treatise on Steel: 

Comprising its Theory, Metallurgy, Properties, Practical Working, 
and Use. By M. H. C. Landein, Jr., Civil Engineer. Translated 
from the French, with Notes, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. With an Appendix on the Bessemer and the Martin Processes 
for Manufacturing Steel, from the Report of Abram S. Hewitt, United 
States Commissioner to the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. In one 
volume, 12mo. $3.00 

LARKIIT. — The Practical Brass and Iron Founder's 
Guide : 

A Concise Treatise on Brass Founding, Moulding, the Metals and their 
Alloys, etc. : to which are added Recent Improvements in the Manu- 
facture of Iron, Steel by the Bessemer Process, etc., etc. By James 
Lakkin, late Conductor of the Brass Foundry Department in Reany, 
Neafie & Co's. Penn Works, Philadelphia. Fifth edition, revised, 
with Extensive additions. In one volume, 12mo. . . . $2.25 

LEA VITT.— Pacts about Peat as an Article of Fuel : 

With Remarks upon its Origin and Composition, the Localities in 
which it is found, the Methods of Preparation and Manufacture, and 
the various Uses to which it is applicable ; together with many other 
matters of Practical and Scientific Interest. To which is added a chap- 
ter on the Utilization of Coal Dust with Peat for the Production of an 
Excellent Fuel at Moderate Cost, specially adapted for Steam Service. 
By T. H. IvEAVITT. Third edition. 12mo. . . . $1.75 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 13 

LEROUX, C. — A Practical Treatise on the Manufac- 
ture of Worsteds and Carded Yarns : 

Comprising Practical Mechanics, with Rules and Calculations applied 
to Spinning ; Sorting, Cleaning, and Scouring Wools ; the English 
and French methods of Combing, Drawing, and Spinning Worsteds 
and Manufacturing Carded Yarns. Translated from the French of 
Charles Leroux, Mechanical Engineer, and Superintendent of a 
Spinning Mill, by HoRATiO Paine, M. D., and A. A. Fesquet, 
Chemist and Engineer. Illustrated by 12 large Plates. To which is 
added an Appendix, containing extracts from the Reports of the Inter- 
national Jury, and of the Artisans selected by the Committee appointed 
by the Council of the Society of Arts, London, on Woollen and Worsted 
Machinery and Fabrics, as exhibited in the Paris Universal Exposi- 
tion, 1867. 8vo., cloth $5.00 

LESLIE (Miss).— Complete Cookery: 

Directions for Cookery in its Various Branches. By MiSS Leslie. 
60th thousand. Thoroughly revised, with the addition of New Re- 
ceipts. In one volume, 12mo., cloth $1.50 

LESLIE (Miss).— Ladies' House Book: 

A Manual of Domestic Economy. 20th revised edition. 12mo., cloth. 

LESLIE (Miss). — Two Hundred Receipts in French 
Cookery. 

Cloth, 12mo. 

LIEBER.— Assayer's Guide : 

Or, Practical Directions to Assayers, Miners, and Smelters, for the 
Tests and Assays, by Heat and by Wet Processes, for the Ores of all 
the principal Metals, of Gold and Silver Coins and Alloys, and of 
Coal, etc. By Oscar M. Lieber. 12mo., cloth. . . $1.25 

LOTH.— The Practical Stair Builder: 

A Complete Treatise on the Art of Building Stairs and Hand-Rails, 
Designed for Carpenters, Builders, and Stair-Builders. Illustrated 
with Thirty Original Plates. By C. Edward Loth, Professional 
Stair-Builder. One large 4to. volume. .... $10.00 

LOVE. — The Art of Dyeing, Cleaning, Scouring, and 
Finishing, on the Most Approved English and 
French Methods: 

Being Practical Instructions in Dyeing Silks, Woollens, and Cottons, 
Feathers, Chips, Straw, etc. Scouring and Cleaning Bed and Window 
Curtains, Carpets, Rugs, etc, French and English Cleaning, any 
Color or Fabric of Silk, Satin, or Damask. By Thomas Love, a 
Working Dyer and Scourer. Second American Edition, to which are 
added General Instructions for the Use of Aniline Colors. In one 
volume, 8vo., 343 pages. $5.00 



14 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

MAIN and BROWN.—Questions on Subjects Con- 
nected with, the Marine Steam-Engine ; 

And Examination Papers : with Hints for their Solution. By Thomas 
J , Main, Professor of Mathematics, Roval Naval College, and Thomas 
Brown, Chief Engineer, R. N. 12mo'., cloth. . . . $1.50 

MAIN and BROWN.— The Indicator and Dynamo- 
meter : 

With their Practical Applications to the Steam-Engine. By Thomas 
J. Main, M. A. F. R., Assistant Professor Royal Naval College, Ports- 
mouth, and Thomas Brown, Assoc. Inst. C. E., Chief Engineer, R. 
N., attached to the Royal Naval College. Illustrated. From the 
Fourth London Edition. 8vo $1.50 

MAIN and BROWN.— The Marine Steam-Engine. 

By Thomas J. Main, F. R. ; Assistant S. Mathematical Professor at 
the Royal Naval College, Portsmouth, and Thomas Brown, Assoc. 
Inst. C. E., Chief Engineer R. N. Attached to the Royal Naval Col- 
lege, Authors of " Questions connected with the Marine Steam-En- 
gine," and the " Indicator and Dynamometer." With numerous Illus- 
trations. In one volume, 8vo. $5.00 

MARTIN.— Screw-Cutting Tables, for the Use of Me- 
chanical Engineers : 

Showing the Proper Arrangement of Wheels for Cutting the Threads 
of Screws of any required Pitch ; with a Table for Making the Uni- 
versal Gas-Pipe Thread and Taps. By W. A. Martin, Engineer. 
8vo 50 

Mechanics' (Amateur) Workshop: 

A treatise containing plain and concise directions for the manipula- 
tion of Wood and Metals, including Casting, Forging, Brazing, Sol- 
dering, and Carpentry. By the author of the " Lathe and its Uses." 
Third edition. Illustrated. 8vo $3.00 

MOLESWORTH.— Pocket-Book of Useful Formulae 
and Memoranda for Civil and Mechanical Engi- 
neers. 

By Guilford L. Molesworth, Member of the Institution of Civil 
Engineers, Chief Resident Engineer of the Ceylon Railway. Second 
American, from the Tenth London Edition. In one volume, full 
bound in pocket-book form $2.00 

NAPIER.— A System of Chemistry Applied to Dyeing. 

By James Napier, F. C. S. A New and Thoroughly Revised Edi- 
tion. Completely brought up to the present state of "the Science, inclu- 
ding the Chemistry of Coal Tar Colors, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist 
and Engineer. With an Appendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as 
shown at the Universal Exposition, Paris, 1867. Illustrated. In one 
Volume, 8vo., 422 pages , , . , $5.00 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 15 

NAPIEK.— Manual of Electro-Metallurgy : 

Including the Application of the Art to Manufacturing Processes. By 
James Napiee. Fourth American, from the Fourth London edition, 
revised and enlarged. Illustrated by engravings. InonevoL, 8vo. $2.00 

NASON. — Table of Keactions for Qualitative Chemical 
Analysis. 
By Henry B. Nason, Professor of Chemistry in the Rensselaer Poly- 
technic Institute, Troy, New York. Illustrated by Colors. . 63 

NEWBERY.— Gleanings from Ornamental Art of 
every style : 
Drawn from Examples in the British, South Kensington, Indian, 
Crystal Palace, anc' ^ther Museums, the Exhibitions of 1851 and 1862, 
and the best Englik.ii and Foreign works. In a series of one hundred 
exquisitely drawn Plates, containing many hundred examples. By 
Robekt Newbery. 4to $15.00 

NICHOLSON— A Manual of the Art of Bookbinding : 

Containing full instructions in the different Branches of Forwarding, 
Gilding, and Finishing. Also, the Art of Marbling Book-edges and 
Paper. By James B. Nicholson. Illustrated. 12mo., cloth. $2,25 

NICHOLSON.— The Carpenter's New Guide: 

A Complete Book of Lines for Carpenters and Joiners. By Peter 
Nicholson. The whole carefully and thoroughly revised by H. K. 
Davis, and containing numerous new and improved and original De- 
signs for Roofs, Domes, etc. By Samuel Sloan, Architect. Ilhis- 
trated by 80 plates. 4to $4.50 

NOmilS.— A Hand-book for Locomotive Engineers 
and Machinists: 

Comprising the Proportions and Calculations for Constructing Loco- 
motives ; Manner of Setting Valves ; Tables of Squares, Cubes, Areas, 
etc., etc. By Septimus Norris, Civil and Mechanical Engmeer. 
New edition. Illustrated. 12mo., CiOth $2.00 

NYSTROM.— On Technological Education, and the 
Construction of Ships and Screw Propellers : 

For Naval and Marine Engineers. Bv John W. Nystrom, late Act- 
ing Chief Engineer, U. S. N. Second edition, revised with additional 
matter. Illustrated by seven engravings. 12mo. . . $1-50 

O'NEILL.— A Dictionary of Dyeing and Calico Print- 
ing: 

Containing a brief account of all the Substances and Processes m use 
in the Art of Dyeing and Printing Textile Fabrics ; with Practical 
Receipts and Scientific Information. By Charles O'Neill, Ana- 
lytical Chemist ; Fellow of the Chemical Society of London ; Member 
of the Literarv and Philosophical Society < f Manchester ; Author of 
" Chemistry of Calico Printing and Dyeing." To which is added an 
Essay on Coal Tar Colors and their application to Dyeing and Calico 
Printing. By A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engineer. With an Ap- 
pendix on Dyeing and Calico Printing, as shown at the Universal 
Exposition, Paris, 1867. In one volume, 8vo., 491 pages. . $6.00 



16 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 



ORTON.— Underground Treasures : 

How and Where to Find Them. A Key for the Ready Determination 
of all the Useful Minerals within the United States. By James 
Oeton, a. M. Illustrated, 12mo $1.50 

OSBORN. — American Mines and Mining: 
Theoretically and Practically Considered. By Prof. H. S. Osbokn. 
Hlustrated by numerous engravings. 8vo. {In preparation.) 

OSBORN.— The Metallurgy of Iron and Steel : 

Theoretical and Practical in all its Branches ; with special reference 
to American Materials and Processes. By H. S. Osborn, LL. D., 
Professor of Mining and Metallurgy in Lafayette College, Easton, 
Pennsylvania. Illustrated by numerous large folding plates and 
wood-engravings. 8vo. $15.00 

OVERMAN.— The Manufacture of Steel : 

Containing the Practice and Principles of Working and Making Steel. 
A Handbook for Blacksmiths and Workers in Steel and Iron, Wagon 
Makers, Die Sinkers, Cutlers, and Manufacturers of Files and Hard- 
ware, of Steel and Iron, and for Men of Science and Art. By Fred- 
erick Overman, Mining Engineer, Author of the " Manufacture of 
Iron," etc. A new, enlarged, and revised Edition. By A. A. Fesqijet, 
Chemist and Engineer $1.50 

OVERMAN.— The Moulder and Pounder's Pocket 
Guide : 

A Treatise on Moulding and Founding in Green-sand, Dry-sand, Loam, 
and Cement ; the Moulding of Machine Frames, Mill-gear, Hollow- 
ware, Ornaments, Trinkets, Bells, and Statues ; Description of Moulds 
for Iron, Bronze, Brass, and other Metals ; Plaster of Paris, Sulphur, 
Wax, and other articles commonly used in Casting ; the Construction 
of Melting Furnaces, the Melting and Founding of Metals ; the Com- 
position of Alloys and their Nature. With an Appendix containing 
Receipts for Alloys, Bronze, Varnishes and Colors for Castings ; also, 
Tables on the Strength and other qualities of Cast Metals. By Fred- 
erick Overman, liining Engineer, Author of " The Manufacture 
of Iron." With 42 Illustrations. 12mo $1.50 

Painter, Gilder, and Varnisher's Companion : 

Containing Rules and Regulations in everything relating to the Arts 
of Painting, Gilding, Varnishing, Glass-Staining, Graining, Marbling, 
Sign-Writing, Gilding on Glass, and Coach Painting and Varnishing ; 
Tests for the Detection of Adulterations in Oils, Colors, etc. ; and a 
Statement of the Diseases to which Painters are peculiarly liable, with 
the Simplest and Best Remedies. Sixteenth Edition. Revised, with 
an Appendix. Containing Colors and Coloring— Theoretical and 
Practical. Comprising descriptions of a great variety of Additional 
Pigments, their Qualities and Uses, to which are added, Dryers, and 
Modes and Operations of Painting, etc. Together with Chevreul's 
Principles of Harmony and Contrast of Colors. 12mo., cloth. $1.50 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 17 

PALLETT.— The Miller's, Millwright's, and Engineer's 
Guide. 

By Henky Pallett. Illustrated. In one volume, 12mo. $3.00 

PERCY.— The Manufacture of Russian Sheet-Iron. 

By John Percy, M.D., F.R.S., Lecturer on Metallurgy at the Royal 
School of Mines, and to The Advanced Class of Artillery Officers at 
the Royal Artillery Institution, Woolwich ; Author of " Metallurgy." 
With Illustrations. 8vo., paper . 50 cts. 

PERKINS.— Gas and Ventilation. 

Practical Treatise on Gas and Ventilation. With Special Relation to 
Illuminating, Heating, and Cooking by Gas. Including Scientific 
Helps to Engineer-students and others. With Illustrated Diagrams. 
By E. E. Perkins, 12mo., cloth $1.25 

PERKINS and STOWE.— A New Guide to the Sheet- 
iron and Boiler Plate Roller : 

Containing a Series of Tables showing the Weight of Slabs and Piles 
to produce Boiler Plates, and of the Weight of Piles and the Sizes of 
Bars to produce Sheet-iron; the Thickness of the Bar Gauge in 
decimals ; the Weight per foot, and the Thickness on the Bar or Wire 
Gauge of the fractional parts of an inch ; the Weight per sheet, and 
the Thickness on the Wire Gauge of Sheet-iron of various dimensions 
to weigh 112 lbs. per bundle ; and the conversion of Short Weight 
into Long Weight, and Long Weight into Short. Estimated and col- 
lected by G. H. Perkins and J. G. Stowe $2.50 

PHILLIPS and DARLINGTON.— Records of Mining 
and Metallurgy ; 

Or Facts and Memoranda for the use of the Mine Agent and Smelter. 
By J. Arthur Phillips, Mining Engineer, Graduate of the Imperial 
School of Mines, France, etc., and John Darlington. Illustrated 
by numerous engravings. In one volume, 12mo. . . $2.00 

PRO TEAUX.— Practical Guide for the Manufacture 
of Paper and Boards. 

By A. Proteatjx, Civil Engineer, and Graduate of tlie School of Arts 
and Manufactures, and Director of Thiers' Paper Mill, Puy-de-D6me. 
With additions, by L. S. Le Normand. Translated from the French, 
with Notes, by Horatio Paine, A. B., M. D. To which is added a 
Chapter on the Manufacture of Paper from Wood in the United 
States, by Henry T. Brown, of the "American Artisan." Illus- 
trated by six plates, containing Drawings of Eaw Materials, Machi- 
nery, Plans of Paper-Mills, etc., etc. 8vo $10.00 

HE GNAULT.— Elements of Chemistry. 
By M. V. Regnatjlt. Translated from the French by T. Forrest 
Betton, M. D., and edited, with Notes, by James C. Booth, Melter 
and Refiner U. S. Mint, and Wm. L. Faber, Metallurgist and Mining 
Engineer. Illustrated by nearly 700 wood engravings. Comprising 
nearly 1500 pages. In two volumes, 8vo., cloth. . . . $7.50 



18 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

REID. — A Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of 
Portland Cement : 

By IIenky Reid, C. E. To which is added a Translation of M. A, 
Lipowitz's Work, describing a Ncav Method adopted in Germany for 
Manufacturing that Cement, by Vi. F. Reid. Illustrated by plates 
and wood engravings. 8yo $6.00 

EIFPAULT, VERGNAUD, and TOUSSAINT.— A 
Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of Var- 
nishes. 
By M M. RiFFAULT, Veegnatjd, and Tottssaint. Revised and 
E&ited by M. F. Malepeyre and Dr. Emil Wincklek. Illustrated. 
In one volume, 8vo. {In preparation.) 

RIPPAULT, VERGNAUD, and TOUSSAIKT.— A 
Practical Treatise on the Manufacture of Colors 
for Painting: 

Containing the best Formulae and the Processes the Newest and in 
most General Use. By M M, Riffault, Vergnaud, and Toussaint. 
Revised and Edited by M. F, Malepeyre and Dr. Emil Winckler. 
Translated from the French by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. Illustrated by Engravings. In one volume, 650 pages, 8vo. 

$7.50 

ROBINSON.— Explosions of Steam Boilers: 

How they are Caused, and how they may be Prevented. By J. R. 
Robinson, Steam Engineer. 12mo $1.25 

ROPER. — A Catechism of High Pressure or Non- 
Condensing Steam-Engines : 

Including the Modelling, Constructing, Running, and Management 
of Steam Engines and Steam Boilei-s. With Illustrations. By 
Stephen Roper, Engineer. Full bound tucks . . . $2.00 

ROSELEUR.— Galvanoplastic Manipulations : 

A Practical Guide for the Gold and Silver Electro-plater and the 
Galvanoi^lastic Operator. Translated from the French of Alfred 
RoSELEUR, Chemist, Professor of the Galvanoplastic Art, Manufactu- 
rer of Chemicals, Gold and Silver Electro-plater. By A. A. Fesquet, 
Chemist and Engineer. Illustrated by over 127 Engravings on wood. 

8vo,, 495 pages , . . _. $6.00 

^^^This Treatise is the fullest and by far the best on this subject ever 
published in the United States. 

SCHINZ.— Researches on the Action of the Blast 
Furnace. 

By Charles Schinz. Translated from the German with the special 
permission of the Author by William H. Maw and MORITZ MUL- 
LER. With an Appendix written by the Author expressly for this 
edition. Illustrated by seven plates, containing 28 figures. In one 
volume, 12mo. $4,25 



HENRY CAEEY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 19 

SHAW.— Civil Architecture : 

Being a Complete Theoretical and Practical System of Building, con- 
taining the Fundamental Principles of the Art. By Edwaed Shaw, 
Architect. To which is added a Treatise on Gothic Architecture, etc. 
By Thomas W. Silloway and George M. Haedixg, Architects. 
The whole illustrated by One Hundred and Two quarto plates finely 
engraved on copper. Eleventh Edition. 4to., cloth. . $10.00 

SHTJNK.— A Practical Treatise on Bailway Curves 
• and Location, for Young Engineers. 
By William F. Shtjnk, Civil Engineer. 12mo. . . $2.00 

SLOAN. — American Houses : 

A variety of Original Designs for Rural Buildings. Illustrated by 26 
colored Engravings, Avith Descriptive References. By Samuel Sloan, 
Architect, author of the " Model Architect," etc., etc. 8vo. $2.50 

SMEATON.— Builder's Pocket Companion: 

Containing the Elements of Building, Surveying, and Architecture; 
with Practical Rules and Instructions connected with the subject. 
By A. C. Smeaton, Civil Engineer, etc. In one volume, 12mo. $1.50 

SMITH.— A Manual of Political Economy. 

By E. Peshine Smith. A new Edition, to which is added a full 
Index. 12mo., cloth $1.25 

SMITH.— Parks and Pleasure Grounds : 

Or Practical Notes on Country Residences, Villas, Public Parks, and 
Gardens. By Charles H. J. Smith, Landscape Gardener and 
Garden Architect, etc., etc. 12mo. $2.25 

SMITH.— The Dyer's Instructor: 

Comjirising Practical Instructions in the Art of Dyeing Silk, Cotton, 
Wool, and Worsted, and Woollen Goods : containing nearly 800 
Receipts. To which is added a Treatise on the Art of Padding ; and 
the Printing of Silk Warps, Skeins, and Handkerchiefs, and tlio 
various Mordants and Colors for the different styles of such work. 
By David Smith, Pattern Dyer. 12mo., cloth. . . . $3.00 

SMITH.— The Practical Dyer's Guide : 

Comprising Practical Instructions in the Dyeing of Shot Cobourgs, 
Silk Striped Orleans, Colored Orleans from Black Warps, Ditto from 
White Warps, Colored Cobourgs from White Warps, Merinos, Yarns, 
Woollen Cloths, etc. Containing nearly 300 Receipts, to most of which 
a Dyed Pattern is annexed. Also, A Treatise on the Art of Padding, 
By David Smith. In one volume, 8vo. Price. . . $25.00 

STEWART.— The American System. 

Speeches on the Tariff Question, and on Internal Improvements, princi- 
pally delivered in the House of Representatives of the United States. 
By Andrew Stewart, late M. C. from Pennsylvania. With a Portrait, 
and a Biographical Sketch. In one volume, 8vo., 407 pages. $3.00 



20 HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

STOKES. — Cabinet-maker's and Upholsterer's Com- 
panion : 

Comprising the Rudiments and Principles of Cabinet-making and Up- 
holstery, with Familiar Instructions, illustrated by Examples for 
attaining a Proficiency in the Art of Drawing, as applicable to Cabi- 
net-work ; the Processes of Veneering, Inlaying, and Buhl-work ; the 
Art of Dyeing and Staining Wood, Bone, Tortoise Shell, etc. Direc- 
tions for Lackering, Japanning, and Varnishing; to make French 
Polish ; to prepare the Best Glues, Cements, and ComjDositions, and a 
number of Receipts particularly useful for workmen generally. 9y 
J. Stokes. In one volume, 12mo. With Illustrations. . $1.25 

Strength and other Properties of Metals: 

Reports of Experiments on the Strength and other Properties of Metals 
for Cannon. With a Description of the Machines for testing Metals, 
and of the Classification of Cannon in service. By Ofiicers of the Ord- 
nance Department U. S. Army. By authority of the Secretary of War. 
Illustrated by 25 large steel plates. In one volume, 4to. . $10.00 

SULLIVAN.— Protection to Native Industry. 

By Sir Edwaed Sullivan, Baronet, author of " Ten Chapters on 
Social Reforms." In one volume, 8vo $1.50 

Tables Showing the Weight of Hound, Square, and 
Plat Bar Iron, Steel, etc., 
By Measurement. Cloth 63 

TAYLOK.— Statistics of Coal : 

Including Mineral Bituminous Substances employed in Arts and 
Manufactures ; with their Geographical, Geological, and Commercial 
Distribution and Amount of Production and Consumption on the 
American Continent. With Incidental Statistics of the Iron Manu- 
facture. By R. C. Taylor. Second edition, revised by S. S. Hal- 
DEMAN. Illustrated by five Maps and many wood engravings, ^o., 
cloth $10.00 

TEMPLET Oisr.— The Practical Examinator on Steam 
and the Steam-Engine : 

With Instructive References relative thereto, arranged for the Use of 
Ensfineers, Students, and others. By Wm. Templeton, Engineer. 
12ino $1.25 

THOMAS.— The Modern Practice of Photography. 

By R. W. Thomas, F. C. S. 8vo., cloth 75 

THOMSON.— Freight Charges Calculator. 

By Andrew Thomson, Freight Agent. 24mo. . . . $1.25 

TURNING: Specimens of Fancy Turning Executed 
on the Hand or Foot Lathe: 

With Geometric, Oval, and Eccentric Chucks, and Elliptical Cutting 
Frame. By an Amateur. Illustrated by 30 exquisite Photographs. 
4to . $3.00 



HENEY CAREY BAIED'S CATALOGUE. 21 

Turner's (The) Companion: 

Containing Instructions in Concentric, Elliptic, and Eccentric Turn- 
ing : also various Plates of Chucks, Tools, and Instruments ; and Di- 
rections for using the Eccentric Cutter, Drill, Vertical Cutter, and 
Cu-cular Eest ; with Patterns and Instructions for Avorking them. A 
new edition in one volume, 12mo. $1.50 

URBIN.— BRULL.— A Practical Guide for Puddling 
Iron and Steel. 
By Ed. Uebix, Engineer of Arts and Manufactures. A Prize Essay- 
read before the Association of Engineers, Graduate of the School of 
Mines, of Liege, Belgium, at the Meeting of 1 865-0. To which is added 

A COMPAEISON OF THE EeSISTING PeOPERTIES OF IeOX AND StEEL. 

By A. Brtjll. Translated from the French by A. A. Fesquet, Che- 
mist and Engineer. In one volume, 8vo $1.00 

VAILE. — Galvanized Iron Cornice-Worker's Manual; 

Containing Instructions in Laying out the Different Mitres, and Ma- 
king Patterns for all kinds of Plain and Circular Work. Also, Tables 
of AV'eights, Areas and Circumferences of Circles, and other Mattel 
calculated to Benefit the Trade. By Charles A. Vaile, Superin- 
tendent " Eichmond Cornice Works," Pachmond, Indiana. Illustra- 
ted by 21 Plates. In one volume, 4to i^o.OO 

VIIiLE.— The School of Chemical Manures : 

Or, Elementary Principles in the Use of Fertilizing Agents. From the 
French of M. Geokge Ville, by A. A. Fesquet, Chemist and Engi- 
neer. With Illustrations. In one volume, 12 mo. . . $1.25 

VOGDES.— The Architect's and Builder's Pocket Com- 
panion and Price Book: 

Consisting of a Short but Comprehensive Epitome of Decimals, Duo- 
decimals, Geometry and Mensuration ; with Tables of U. S. Measures, 
Sizes, Weights, Strengths, etc., of Iron, Wood, Stone, and various 
other Materials, Quantities of Materials in Given Sizes, and Dimen- 
sions of Wood, Brick, and Stone ; and a full and complete Bill of 
Prices for Carpenter's Work ; also, Eules for Computing and Valuing 
Brick and Brick Work, Stone Work, Painting, Plastering, etc. By 
Frank W. Vogdes, Architect. Illustrated. Full bound in pocket- 
book form $2.00 

Bound in cloth 1-50 

WARN.— The Sheet-Metal Worker's Instructor: 

For Zinc, Sheet-Iron, Copper, and Tin-Plate W^orkers, etc. Contain- 
ing a selection of Geometrical Problems; also, Practical and Simple 
Eules for describing the various Patterns required in the different 
branches of the above Trades. Bv Eeuben H. Warn, Practical Tin- 
plate Worker. To which is added an Appendix, containing Instruc- 
tions for Boiler Making, Mensuration of Surfaces and Solids, Eules for 
Calculating the Weights of different Figures of Iron and Steel, Tables 
of the W^eights of Iron, Steel, etc. Illustrated by 32 Plates and 37 
Wood Engravings. 8vo. $3.00 



22 HENEY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 

WARNER. — New Theorems, Tables, and Diagrams 
for the Computation of Earth- Work : 

Designed for the use of Engineers in Preliminary and Final Estimates, 
of Students in Engineering, and of Contractors and other non-profes- 
sional Computers. In Two Parts, with an Appendix. Part I. — A 
Practical Treatise ; Part II. — A Theoretical Treatise ; and the Appen- 
dix. Containing Notes to the Rules and Examples of Part I. ; Expla- 
nations of the Construction of Scales, Tables, and Diagrams, and a 
Treatise upon Equivalent Square Bases and Equivalent Level Heights. 
The whole illustrated by numerous original Engravings, comprising 
Explanatory Cuts for Definitions and Problems, Stereometric Scales 
and Diagrams, and a Series of Lithographic Drawings from Models, 
showing all the Combinations of Solid Forms which occur in Railroad 
Excavations and Embankments. By John Wakneb, A, M., Mining 
and Mechanical Engineer. 8vo $5.00 

WATSOW.— A Manual of the Hand-Lathe: 

Comprising Concise Directions for working Metals of all kinds, Ivory, 
Bone and Precious Woods ; Dyeing, Coloring, and French Polishing ; 
Inlaying by Veneers, and various methods practised to produce Elabo- 
rate work with Dispatch, and at Small Expense. By Egbert P. 
Watson, late of " The Scientific American," Author of " The Modern 
Practice of American Machinists and Engineers." Illustrated by 78 
Engravings $1.50 

WATSON. — The Modern Practice of American Ma- 
chinists and Engineers: 

Including the Construction, Application, and Use of Drills, Lathe 
Tools, Cutters for Boring Cylinders, and Hollow Work Generally, 
with the most Economical Speed for the same ; the Results verified by 
Actual Practice at the Lathe, the Vice, and on the Floor. Together 
with Workshop Management, Economy of Manufacture, the Steam- 
Engine, Boilers, Gears, Belting, etc., etc. By Egbert P. Watson, 
late of the " Scientific American." Illustrated by 86 Engravings. In 
one volume, 12mo $2.50 

\VATSON.— The Theory and Practice of the Art of 
Weaving by Hand and Power : 

With Calculations and Tables for the use of those connected with the 
Trade. By John Watson, Manufacturer and Practical Machine 
Maker. Illustrated by large Drawings of the best Power Looms. 
8vo $10.00 

WEATHERLY.— Treatise on the Art of Boiling Su- 
gar, Crystallizing, Lozenge-making, Comfits, Gum 
Goods. 
12mo $2.00 

WEDDING.— The Metallurgy of Iron ; 
Theoretically and Practically Considered. By Dr. Hermann Wed- 
DING, Professor of the Metallurgy of Iron at the Eoyal Mining 
Academy, Berlin. Translated by Julius Du Mont, Bethlehem, Pa. 
Illustrated by 207 Engravings on Wood, and three Plates. In one 
volume, 8vo, {In press.) 



HENRY CAREY BAIRD'S CATALOGUE. 23 

WILL. — Tables for Qualitative Chemical Analysis. 

By Professor Heinkich Will, of Giessen, Germany. Seventh edi- 
tion. Translated by Charles F. Himes, Ph. D., Professor of Natu- 
ral Science, Dickinson College, Carlisle, Pa. . . . $1.50 

WILLIAMS.— On Heat and Steam : 

Embracing New Views of Vaporization, Condensation, and Explosions. 
By Charles Wye Williams, A. I. C. E. Illustrated. 8vo. $3.50 

WOHLEE.— A Hand-Book of Mineral Analysis. 

By F. Wohler, Professor of Chemistry in the University of Gottin- 
gen. Edited by Henry B. Nason, Professor of Chemistry in the 
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, New York. Illustrated. In 
one volume, 12mo $3 00 

WORSSAM.— On Mechanical Saws: 

From the Transactions of the Society of Engineers, 1869. By S. W. 
WoRSSAM, Jr. Illustrated by 18 large plates. 8vo. . . $5.00 




■ ■ • •fmJ-'-'l'- - " 



'v ."S^ '': 




-:"'•■ '•>" 'A' ' ''>■♦ •' -"^ 









':'*U^' 
















-"A-^.^ w 




>■•,-■' 






.-/-, 



I 












^1 



















I*/;, ;.<.>! 







"s i:---V^, 



>*: V V^ ''rJi 



